


Name the Sky

by nieded



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 1800s victorian era, AU, Ancient Greece, Apocalypse, Crowley loves music, Garden of Eden, Genderqueer Crowley, Good Omens Big Bang, Library of Alexandria, M/M, Mentions of Rape, Renaissance Italy, Slow Burn, The 90s, WWII, ace crowley, and abuse of metaphor involving nightingales, and angel is a principality, and the story is rife with misunderstandings, aziraphale collects greek mythology instead of prophecies, crowley has a forked tongue and cannot speak, germany reformation, in which crowley is still a fallen angel, present day, procne and philomela, retelling of Good Omens, the 60s, the slowest fucking burn, there's gratuitous use of greek mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 32,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22286890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nieded/pseuds/nieded
Summary: In which Crowley has a forked tongue and cannot speak, resulting in 6000 years of misunderstandings, miscommunication, and a discovered secret.Or:He’s the principality of deja vu, the rasp of broken laughter, and the song of nightingales outside of windows in the witching hour. He is the guardian of brief encounters after centuries apart, the splatter of turpentine, of unspoken words in soft moments without witness. It frightens him, the way Crowley slinks just outside of his periphery, like trying to hold water in his hands.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 89
Kudos: 285
Collections: Good Omens Big Bang 2019





	1. Cover Art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cover art was created by the amazing [peaceloveartsnart](https://peaceloveartsnart.tumblr.com/). You can find the masterpost for the art [here](https://peaceloveartsnart.tumblr.com/post/190304410275/this-work-is-my-contribution-to-the-good-omens-big) on tumblr.


	2. Part I: i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strap in! I hope you're ready for this wild ride. This story is divided into two parts.
> 
> Part I: Takes place before the events of the show. Each subsection is a different period in time. 
> 
> Part II: The events from the show re-written. 
> 
> Germany reformation

Aziraphale glances around the library with a quick furtive look before inching the candle closer. He pours over the text he smuggled into the abbey, the draping sleeves of his frock brushing against the scroll’s brittle pages. It’s blasphemy to bring such a text into the monastery, but he’d traveled to Greece to retrieve it under the guise of a missionary. He must be careful not to get caught with something so blasphemous.

Someone had recovered and transcribed the original documents from Sophocles’ play _Tereus_. Once upon a time, he’d almost gotten his hands on the original, but a small fire had broken out in the theatre and only fragments remained.

He’s fond of the tragedy and remembers seeing it performed during the City Dionysia festival in Athens. It’d been a hot, sweltering day, the audience crammed together to see the performances, cheering and shouting at the chorus and the actors. He remembers catching Crowley, of all people! lurking behind the stage in his all-black cloak and chiton, dripping and miserable. They’d gone off to the Symposium after to indulge in food and drink until Crowley’s spirits had elevated.

He catches himself smiling at the memory and schools his face into one of study. There’s no one else in the library at this late hour, but it wouldn’t do get complacent.

He looks up at the sound of running feet. A young nun pops her head through the doorway, catching her breath. “Sister Mary Cecilia, whatever is the matter?” he asks, taking in the sight of her. 

She has one hand on her chest, eyes wide in alarm, fearful. “There’s a man here to see you. He’s waiting outside the front of the church.”

Aziraphale covers his scroll. “Well invite him in. It’s a blizzard out there. Who is it?”

“I tried,” Sister Mary says, “but he refused. He declined to tell me his name, though he comes bearing this.”

Aziraphale takes the vellum from her hand and examines it. It’s his old seal from his time as a knight, a splash of fresh-pressed wax in the shape of a holy cross, an eagle in flight behind it. There’s only one being who would remember such a thing, only one person who has his old signet ring. “Right,” he says and stands. He follows Sister Mary Cecilia out to the front of the abbey.

A dark figure waits for him outside the entrance donning a black cloak and cowl. Aziraphale baulks at the sight of Crowley in religious dress. The nerve of him! “Thank you, Sister Mary.” He dismisses the nun.

“Of course, Brother Francis.”

Crowley’s eyebrows lift at the name, a hint of his gleaming eyes peeking out from under his hood, and Aziraphale lets out an exasperated sigh. “It’s an alias. I’m undercover.” Then he looks around to make sure they’re alone and whispers, “Meet me around the back of the building by the guesthouses where I’m staying. It should be safe there. I’m going to go collect my things.”

Crowley nods in understanding, pulling his hood down to cover his face. He tucks his hands into his sleeves, bringing them together in a mockery of the monks and smiles.

Aziraphale sputters at the sight of the demon’s smirk. “Honestly. Be gone.” He marches back to the library and wraps his scroll with care. What could Crowley possibly be doing here in the middle of a blizzard? The last he’d heard, the demon was off gallivanting in Germany, causing mayhem and spreading dissent. He must have rushed back to England in a hurry. He’s lost in thought as he dashes through the halls of the abbey. 

The guest houses have an inside entrance connected to the rest of the establishment but also open up to the grounds. He lights a few candles and stokes the fireplace once he reaches his quarters, and moves to open the outside entrance. The snow blows in, the sharp cold cutting through his cloak. There’s no sight of Crowley anywhere. “That fiend,” he mutters, bundling himself up. He steps outside to find him.

Aziraphale bites back curses when he finds Crowley all the way on the other side of the entrance, peering into the stained glass windows of the church as if he could see anything inside. His hood is down collecting snow, fingertips pressed against the glass. “What in Heaven’s name are you doing?” Aziraphale asks.

Crowley startles and turns to look at him, eyes illuminated by the firelight seeping through the window. The sounds of the choir rehearsing drift outside, muted and muffled by the howling winds. Aziraphale softens at the sight and remembers how the demon always loved the chorus and musicians the most during their time in Greece. 

“You’ll get discorporated out here,” he says and leads Crowley back through the snow.

Once safe inside, Crowley throws a stack of heavy parchment on the table, kicking up dust. “What’s this?” Aziraphale asks, examining the edges of the worn document. Crowley must have travelled with it on his return journey to England. The text is in German, and he struggles for a moment to read it. “The Ninety-Five Theses,” he says. 

Crowley makes a gesture as if to say, ‘go on,’ looking at the document. 

Aziraphale sits in silence for a moment, scouring the pages. His eyes widen and fingers grip the edges. He gasps. The document in question has been written by a town preacher, Martin Luther, challenging the Vatican. In part, it criticises the use of Indulgences in which parishioners can pay-off their sins to the Church. It’s… enlightened. Dangerous.

“This won’t go well with the papacy at all,” he says. “I suppose this was your doing?”

Crowley makes a face, eyes widening. He points at himself and shrugs. 

“What will happen to this preacher, Martin Luther?”

Crowley mimes dragging his finger over his throat. An execution then. What a thought. Aziraphale can’t say he disagrees with the ideas the man put forth, but he knows how recalcitrant the Church can be about reformation. There will be bloodshed, he suspects, and he is so tired of holy wars. 

He glowers and pushes the papers back to the demon. “Stay out of this, and stay out of Germany,” he snaps. “I’ll go and fix this.”

The demon leans back in his chair, arms folded over his chest with an unreadable expression. With unblinking eyes, he tracks Aziraphale’s pacing, letting out a low, jagged hum, the sound scratchy and broken from his disused larynx. His forked tongue hisses now and again in the silence. Even after all these years of knowing each other, Aziraphale struggles to read his thoughts. Crowley has always shown a disinterest in writing, and so they’ve had to rely on little head nods and gestures, his expressive and mobile face its own language. 

Then Crowley’s gaze drifts down to the table, eyes catching on the sight of Aziraphale’s forbidden text. His hand creeps to reach for it, but the angel darts across the room, snatching it out of reach. “This is private,” he says, bringing it to his chest. 

He knows he’s made a mistake, revealed his hand, when Crowley stands in a pique of interest. He stalks over to him, long legs somehow swaying under his thick robes, backing Aziraphale against the wall. He looms over him and cocks his head. The unblinking stare unnerves the angel, and he draws the papers closer for protection. 

Crowley lifts a finger, serpentine-like, and bends back the first page. He’s careful not to crease the parchment, the brush of his hair tickling under Aziraphale’s nose as he peers to get a better look at the text. Only the title is readable in the shadow of their bodies. _Tereus._ Crowley inhales a sharp breath and lets go. The page snaps back into place. He straightens, meeting Aziraphale’s gaze with a furrowed brow, lips parted. A questioning, jagged sound escapes from his throat. 

“I--” Aziraphale says, uncertain why he feels the need to defend himself. Crowley doesn’t care that he wasn’t reading scripture after all. “You remember Greece. Sophocles. Such an interesting fellow. I just… enjoyed the play so much.” As an afterthought, he adds, “We had dolmas and those sweet grapes they turn to wine.”

A look darts across Crowley’s face before softening into a genuine, small smile. It’s there and gone again in a moment, a trick of the firelight. 

Struggling to regain control of the situation, Aziraphale pushes off the wall. “Stay out of Germany,” he reiterates, returning to the subject at hand. “Just… Just keep your wiles to yourself.”

A bark of laughter escapes out of Crowley, low and hoarse, his mirth and mischievousness returning. He backs away, hands up in feigned placation. He gives Aziraphale one more look before turning for the door and exiting, letting in another gust of cold wintery air that flickers the candles and stokes the fireplace in ablaze. Aziraphale moves to the window and watches the demon traipse through the blizzard until his black cloak blends into the night. 

_What a mess_ , he thinks. It’s too late to return to the library so he pulls his chair close to the fireplace, the transcription of the play in his lap. He turns to the first page and reads. _From the beginning, then_.


	3. Part I: ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Garden

The first angels, the Seraphim, are made from God herself. In the beginning, they prosper and help build the universe, create galaxies and gasses and the insidious but beautiful cycle of material crashing together and exploding apart. They are ancient, existing and creating long before Earth and the Garden of Eden. They care little for such frivolities like time. All things come and go, the universe a spinning merry-go-round of creation and destruction.

From these explosions, the young angels are born. Aziraphale is made of star stuff, frozen dust suspended in space, the shine of light travelling through darkness and plucked by the hand of God. They issue him a superior, a flaming sword, and a heart which burns as hot as the sun. They call him Principality, ruler of nations. Little does he know that his nation of two people will flourish into legions.

On his second day of existence, they drop him in the Garden, and for the first fortnight, his boredom is terminal. Beware of the demons, the other angels tell him. They’ll come for you and tempt you, the Fallen. They are wicked, the very core of them burned black. So far Aziraphale has picked his nails down to the quick, peering down from his post with little else to do, no demons in sight to thwart. His sword lays discarded beside him, little flames licking at his toes. These humans do little but feast and rest and copulate. It’s boring to watch, but he suspects it’s more fun to do. 

_Is that a dangerous thought?_ he wonders, pausing. Could he do those things? The copulating looks messy and exhausting. Loud too. Bit barbaric, he thinks, but the feasting looks delightful. The fruits come in all sorts of exquisite colours, popping against the wash of green everywhere, and they remind him a bit of all the different planets and galaxies. Like home. 

On the third week, he starts humming little pieces of the liturgy he heard sung by the Heavenly Choirs. The young angels don’t possess the same echoing, enlightened voices of the Seraphim, and he sings a bit off-key. He entertains himself for some time in this manner when he catches a slither of shadow down below from the corner of his eye.

For a long moment, he pauses, silent and staring into the Garden. The humans are off in the distance near the west wall. He leans over the parapet but relaxes when nothing happens. Just a trick, he thinks and resumes his humming. 

It happens several more times throughout the day, just a glimpse of darkness peeking through the trees, never staying in one spot. Aziraphale stands with his sword drawn for some time before gathering his wits. He closes his eyes and inhales a fortifying breath before descending into the Garden. 

When he lands, he’s surprised the find the ground quite soft, not at all like the stone wall. It gives under the weight of his body and sticks to his feet. The textures of the forest distract him, the roughness of the bark and the smoothness of the leaves. And the animals! Little lizards scampering across the ground, bees flitting and buzzing between flowers. His favourite, however, are the nightingales. The males sing in sharp, frantic little chirrups while the females sit beside them silently, eyes beady and inquisitive as he walks past.

“Hello,” he says, waving a bit. He whistles back at them before carrying on. 

It’s hot and humid in the Garden. What would it hurt, he wonders, if he just rested for a moment? The Garden is a sanctuary, after all, safe and sound. He stops to sit under the shade of a large tree, leaning against the trunk as his eyes drift shut. It’s a heavy, weighted feeling, dragging him down. His head tips forward of its own volition, and he jerks awake with the suddenness of it, gasping.

“Ah!” he shouts, scrambling back against the tree. That definitely hadn’t been there before.

In front of him, a creature sits perched against the opposite tree peering at him. It almost looks like an angel, Aziraphale thinks, except for the black wings and serpentine eyes. It has red, blistering hair, a snarled cascade of waves down its back. 

“You must be a demon,” Aziraphale says. “I’ve been warned about you.” The creature doesn’t quite look like he expected, however. He’d been told they smell more, covered in decay and maggots. 

“Are you a man?” he asks instead. The creature cocks its head in question, eyebrows furrowing. “Like them?” Aziraphale clarifies, pointing towards the west wall where the humans sleep. The creature shakes its head. It blinks and hisses, the tip of a forked tongue escaping his front teeth and a trail of blood dripping from its mouth.

The creature crawls forward then, hands and feet digging into the soil. He approaches and opens his mouth. It’s filled with blood. Aziraphale gasps at the sight, the tongue forked and oozing. On his throat, a long wound drags down its larynx, seeping and infected. 

“Oh, oh my dear,” he says, reaching forward. It flinches and tips back in an attempt to scuttle away. “Wait, let me help. Please. I could try healing you.” He manages to wrap a firm hand around its wrist, and it lets out an agonized, garbled shout, a broken hand flinging upward to cradle its damaged throat. Aziraphale moves in with swiftness and presses his palm to its neck.

The creature stills, splayed on its back with its yellow serpent-like eyes wide and afraid. Its wings beat, trapped under their bodies. When Aziraphale lifts his hand, only a pale pink scar remains, the skin still tender but healed. Then he moves his hand to its mouth. After, the creature spits out blood and hisses, its tongue healed though still forked. 

Lastly, Aziraphale takes his hands. The fingers are bent in horrible configurations, the black of his nails ripped from the nail bed. Matching slices cut through the tendons of his wrists. Aziraphale cradles them in his hands, smoothing them over.

“There,” Aziraphale says. “See? There’s nothing to it.” On its back, he can see the creature really is just a man, not a monster. The wings, though inky black as the cosmos, are just feathers and flesh. “Are you an angel?” The man pauses, eyes shuttering for a moment before he shakes his head. No. 

“A demon then?” He cocks his head in question. “Fallen,” Aziraphale clarifies.

There’s another pause before he nods once. 

Right, he should smite him then, but Aziraphale stays his hand. He doesn’t seem evil, though he knows deception is a demon’s most useful skill. He remembers the stories Gabriel told him of the Fallen, how they lost their Grace and their heavenly names, how God fell silent the day they were cast out and now no one has heard Her since. “What do I call you?” he asks. “Do you have a name?” 

The demon shakes his head once. He opens his mouth to speak, but only a low hoarse moan escapes. Aziraphale could only undo so much of the damage, healing the wounds but not undoing the injury.

He steps back and appraises the demon. A forked tongue, he thinks. A serpent? He’d thought they had fewer limbs. Even so, the creature hasn’t quite figured out what to do with them, crawling on all fours like an animal. “How about I call you… Crawly?”

The demon scowls, eyes narrowing into slits. He hisses. 

“Ah, I see. A bit too on the nose.” Aziraphale hums in thought, working through the vowels in his head. “Cr--ow--ley? Crowley! How’s that?” 

The demon tilts his head, eyes shifting to the side in consideration. He looks back at Aziraphale and leans forward to study his face with his glittering, slitted eyes. Whatever he finds there, he approves. He nods, one short movement, almost imperceptible were he not so close. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says once more, feeling the shape of it in his mouth, the sharp beginning rounding out into something musical. He’s never had the pleasure of naming something before. “Hello, then.” 

The creature, the demon Crowley, stares at him for several beats before turning and flitting into the trees. For a long moment, the Garden is silent, just the rustle of leaves in the wind before the chirruping of the nightingales resume in little hiccups of song. 

After his encounter with the demon, Aziraphale decides to spend more time on the ground. After all, there’s an adversary he needs to be wary about. He paces around the perimeter of the garden, brushing his fingers along the silken leaves of the bushes. He discovers the prick of thorns and the sweetness of berries, alarmed by the deep purple stains they leave on his hands for days. He watches the humans from a distance, knowing they see him. By mutual silent agreement, they avoid each other. He is a principality, there to watch over them and not to interact. 

And still, he hums under his breath, low so he can feel the vibrations in his chest. Crowley’s dark shadow flickers in and out around him where the brush is the densest, where the light cannot penetrate the forest floor. Just once does the demon come to him again, walking upright in a pale imitation of the humans, his movements disjointed from his hips, each step unpracticed. He watches Aziraphale with curiosity as he eats the soft flesh of a peach, and when he offers a piece of fruit to the demon, Crowley tenders something in return.

The thin spindled bones of his fingers cradle a hard red fruit. The skin shines even under the shadow of the canopy. He presses it to Aziraphale’s chest with force.

Aziraphale covers the demon’s hands with his own. “Crowley,” he says, liberal with the use of his name. “This is forbidden. I cannot go against the Word of God.”

Crowley shoves harder, and when Aziraphale resists, his eyes squeeze shut in frustration. He lets out a guttural grunt and crushes the apple in his grasp until it bursts, its sweet scent exploding into the air. Then he pitches it at the nearest tree. He stalks off.

Aziraphale shouts after him. “I don’t know what you want, Crowley. God decreed punishment should anyone eat from the Tree of Knowledge. I can’t. I’ll Fall.” His voice descends on silence, absorbed by the foliage and soil, not even an echo calling back to him. His hands smell sweet like the apple. 

Well, this whole principality thing was turning into a bit more than just a lark. He’s furious though he doesn’t know why. He should have expected, after all, that a demon would try to tempt him. He doesn’t know why he feels like he’s failed. It’s a niggling worry eking in on the edges of his mind, an itch in the back of his conscience he can’t quite reach. 

He goes to the Tree of Knowledge to stand guard, though he doesn’t see Crowley there. It’s a great big looming tower, its branches stretching outward and higher than any other tree. The apple blossoms smell sweet and heady, perfuming the air around it. It’s a seduction of honey, cloying and thick, a homing beacon calling all creatures to it with its sweetness. Aziraphale spares one unsteady thought that it smells like temptation itself before he shakes himself out of it and draws his sword.

He circles the Tree for days and feels terribly alone, just him and the birdsong. He picks at the itch in his mind, turning it over and over. He holds the memory in his hands and polishes it down like a smooth stone, seeking every edge and corner. Did Crowley not know where the apple came from, what it meant when he gave it to Aziraphale? No, he knew. After all, it was the only forbidden object in the Garden. It was no accident he brought the apple, of all fruits, to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale just thought temptation would look different. He trusted the old angels, the Seraphim, when they said to be wary. Demons are cunning. They will trap you before you know it, bend your own mind and will. You have not seen the things our brethren did, so young you are, Principality. 

Crowley didn’t seem cunning or wily, though Aziraphale supposes that would be the trick of it, wouldn’t it? He seemed frustrated, angry and desperate. 

Aziraphale has been given the Garden as his nation, his realm to protect. He just wonders if Crowley is meant to be protected or to be protected from. 

He gets his answer soon enough one day when he feels a shift in the air. The days pass by in the Garden unchanging, warm with a breeze, sweet and not too dry. Later, Aziraphale will recall these days and think it was a bit like sitting seaside in the sun, the glittering sand reflecting the heat from the sun, belayed by a mist of water and the crisp smell of salt, teetering in perfect balance. 

It’s hard to put words to the change he feels in the weather when all he’s known has been sweetness. It starts with a niggling, creeping sensation. The fine hairs on his arms stand on end. A charge builds in the air, the potential energy expanding and pushing for release. It weighs down on his chest, compresses his diaphragm. The air whooshes from his lungs, and above him a terrifying, jagged light strikes the Tree. Sparks of fire spray around him from the blast, catching on the grass and the forest floor. 

He runs to find his charges, his hand damp with sweat, gripping the hilt of his sword. The heat of the fire behind him pursues him. Eden is ablaze. 

Lightning strikes the parapet of the eastern wall, stone crumbling in an avalanche. He grabs Eve’s hand and sprints towards the opening, Adam in tow, where the stones are still hot to the touch. Her face is wet, eyes open in fear, in knowing. The roar of thunder builds around them, drowning out the cries of the animals and his own thrumming heartbeat thrashing against his ribcage. He thrusts his sword in Adam’s hands. “Go!” he shouts. “Go now!” and pushes them through the gap in the wall and out into the desert.

Then he turns back to face the Garden. The fire unfurls around the Tree and catches on the lush foliage, all of the sticky sap-soaked bark, the thorns from the berry bushes consumed. He dashes back into the flames, wings mantled to protect him from the heat, heart full and aching.

He finds Crowley squatting with his back against the southern wall, face buried in his hands. Aziraphale sprints to him and grabs him by the wrists, jerking him upwards with a stunning amount of force. He grabs him by the face with both hands, shaking him. “What have you done, you fiend? What did you do?”

Crowley grips his upper arms, the sharp points of his fingers digging into the muscle. He shakes, caught out, the whites of eyes swallowed by his yellow irises. Aziraphale wants to crush him. He warned him--he told him not to-- _why_ did he have to give them the apple? 

There’s regret in Crowley’s face. No fear, just grief. 

“Oh Crowley,” he says and releases him. He looks so small, crouched as he is against the heat of the flames. Aziraphale takes his wrist. “We have to go.” 

They escape through the opening in the wall, the fire chasing them both out. One lone nightingale escapes over the wall with them, listless from the smoke and heat. They watch it careen off into the horizon, the heat at their backs. 

“Where will you go?” It’s a rhetorical question. Of course, Crowley cannot answer, may not even know himself. Aziraphale looks at him. He has soot on his face from where Aziraphale had gripped his jaw in both hands, enraged. Crowley points at the horizon where the bird disappeared somewhere off in the distance.

“I mean to follow the humans,” Aziraphale says. Then he shakes his head. “You’d best stay away. I’ll never understand why you did what you did, giving them that apple.”

Crowley looks at him, and Aziraphale can’t parse what it means. It should be Aziraphale who is disappointed in the demon, not the other way around, though he ends up feeling chastised. Crowley reaches up and rests a heavy hand on Aziraphale’s cheek for a long moment, assessing him with his transfixing eyes and then begins his walk across the empty desert in the opposite direction of the humans’ footprints. 

Aziraphale feels his absence keenly. He turns to go.


	4. Part I: iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ancient Greece at the Dionysus Festival

But maybe this story doesn’t really begin in the Garden of Eden, or even the beginning of Aziraphale’s creation, the white curls of his hair made of the stuff of stars, carbon and hydrogen and blinding brightness. This story begins in 438 BC on a hot sweltering day in Athens during the festivities celebrating the god Dionysus. It will end in a symposium in the back gardens of a king, drunk on wine and full on dolmas and olives and soft cheeses blooming pungent on his tongue.

The City Dionysia -- or the Great Dionysia -- takes place in the spring when all the greatest playwrights come together in competition. Aziraphale, who has spent the last five decades here, finds it the most spectacular of events. He’s taken to counselling Pericles, ruler of Athens, through the Peloponnesian War, and if a little bird has also whispered in the king’s ear to build the Parthenon and fund public festivities and the arts, who is Aziraphale to argue?

He makes his way to the agora where the final day of the competition is being held, skiving off his duties as a counsellor. Everyone will be present anyway: men, women, and children alike, the Senate abandoned for revelry. Aziraphale heard Sophocles will be presenting a new tragedy, _Tereus_ , and his greatest competitor, Aeschylus, will be performing as well. 

He grumbles a bit when he reaches the theatre to find it full. No matter. With a wave of his hand an extra space near the front makes room for him, and he settles in his seat.

“Aziraphale!” 

He frowns when he hears his name, the voice familiar. Oh. He groans and turns to look. It’s Gabriel stomping down the aisle, beaming. Aziraphale presses his lips into a thin, tight line. 

Gabriel’s chosen to present himself in a glaring white chiton and himation held together with a winged brooch covering the entirety of his shoulder. The leather of his sandals is painted gold, of all things, blinding in the sunlight. Aziraphale tugs at his own cream-coloured garment and fights the urge to roll his eyes. He waits until he’s made it all the way down the aisle to the front rows before standing to greet him.

“Gabriel, how pleasant to see you. I wasn’t expecting you,” he says, hoping he sounds cordial.

“Hello, Aziraphale! Surprise performance review today.” Gabriel looks around the open theatre, brimming with people. An angry shout from the back yells at him to sit down. “I see you look busy.”

Aziraphale bristles a bit at that and straightens. “It’s a holiday. I’ve come to be with the people to observe how they celebrate.”

“Hmm, well, come along then. Show me around. I want to see what you’ve been up to with that dear old Pericles.”

“The Senate is closed for the day, I’m afraid,” he says. He struggles to keep his voice even. The performances are about to start, and he’d been so looking forward to them. “As I said, it’s a _holiday_.” 

“Oh, don’t be so sour,” Gabriel says with a slap on the back. Aziraphale jerks under the weight of it. “I’ll buy you some wine to make up for it.”

Aziraphale, who has been miracling up his own wine for about the last two centuries, isn’t impressed, but he certainly can’t go against his superior. “That sounds lovely,” he says, face pinched tight. 

They exit the agora and Aziraphale turns back to look at the stage one last time. They’ll be doing _Tereus_ first, and he’s sad to miss it. He’s had the pleasure of interacting with Sophocles here and there and found him brilliant and enchanting if a bit of a flirt. 

Out of the agora and glaring sun, it’s much cooler. Aziraphale adjusts his garments as the sea breeze whips through, and he can taste salt on the back of his throat. “Well, I do say I’ve done good work here,” he says, puffing a bit with pride. “Pericles has brought on a golden age of arts and learning. The people are dedicated to a fair and a just government, and I do believe Pericles will lead the Athenians to victory in their war against those brutish Spartans.”

Gabriel makes a face, a pained smile. “Yeah… about that. It’s been foretold the Spartans will win the Peloponnesian War. I’d probably, you know, skip town in about thirty years.”

Aziraphale gasps. “Oh, oh no. But these are such good pious people.”

“Well, they are a bit blasphemous, aren’t they?” Gabriel asks. “Serving multiple gods, praying to deities, making sacrifices. Take this Dionysus everyone’s celebrating, for example.”

Aziraphale quite likes Dionysus. He’s the god of all of his favourite things, wine-making and theatre, easing suffering and bringing joy through religious ecstasy. “He might not be Herself,” he argues, pointing up at Heaven, “but he spreads a good message.”

Gabriel purses his lips together and wrinkles his nose, folding his arms across his chest. “Didn’t he punish all of Athens by causing mass erectile dysfunction for not praising him?”

“Ah, well,” Aziraphale says and pauses. He tilts his head to one side. “Yes, there is that.” 

A roar of cheers comes up from the agora, and Aziraphale startles at the sound. Oh, how he wishes he could be down there. He’s been exhausted chasing after Pericles and sitting through long, hot Senate sessions. He wants to enjoy the day.

Gabriel looks in the direction of the theatre. “Look,” he says, offering another bruising back slap. “You’re not missing much down there. Philomela seduces Tereus and then he cuts out her tongue for trying to lie about it. It’s boring stuff.”

Aziraphale slaps his hands over his ears. He schools his face before he can shoot this superior a nasty look. “I would have liked to have seen it myself.”

“Eh, these humans. What do they have that the Heavenly choirs don’t have?”

It would take all day to explain to Gabriel just what he loves most about humans. They’re creative and inventive, often led astray but pure at heart. It’s a moot point trying to convey that to someone like Gabriel, stuck in his ways in Heaven. 

He changes the subject instead. “So, what did you want to talk to me about? Has there been a complaint?”

“No, no no no, no complaints,” Gabriel says. “You’re doing marvellously. A real champ.”

“Oh good. All is well? Nothing I should worry about warranting a surprise performance review?”

“Well, there was one thing I wanted, actually,” Gabriel starts. “I wanted a, uh,” he looks around the market in search of something. “I, uh, wanted… to… dine with you! Yes!” He claps his hands together. “I’ve never tried Greek food.”

Aziraphale makes a face. Good lord, this is tedious. “You’ve never tried food, period.” 

“No time like the present, then.” 

Aziraphale sighs and bites back a groan. He pastes a smile on his face. “Well, I can make several recommendations for you to try. There’s a charming little place just on the other side of the Parthenon that--”

Just then Gabriel leaps into the air, both feet off the ground. Later, Aziraphale will think he’s never seen anything so hilarious as his supervising angel yelping, the hem of his himation flipping up to show the surrounding patrons his god-given assets. 

He turns to see what causes the commotion. “Oh, dear. It’s just a snake,” he says. From a nearby bush, a large black serpent has slithered out, swaying a bit in the sun. It does look a bit intimidating, Aziraphale admits, but he’s been on earth long enough to know that no animal would bring an angel harm. He hasn’t seen one so big in Greece before, though. It is a bit surprising.

“Oh Lord in Heaven,” Gabriel says. “Are they all that big?”

Aziraphale means to console him, really, but then he sees how the archangel has scooted a good ten feet back going in the opposite direction of the agora. He gropes behind him in search of something to cling to, eyes never leaving the large snake who seems to have him in its sights. Perfect. 

“Oh yes,” he says, exaggerating his voice. “Greece has the deadliest of snakes. Most are larger than that one even, and you never know when one might spring out at you.”

“Heh, ah,” Gabriel says.

“It’d probably be safest not to stick around.” 

Gabriel nods. He’s found an olive tree to cling to. “Very good then. Uh, great job down here.” And then he disappears with a poof.

Satisfied, Aziraphale claps his hands together and turns around to return to the agora. He stops when he sees the large black serpent has disappeared and has instead been replaced by Crowley. 

He gasps. “Oh, it was you!” 

Crowley stands there, a bit awkward and all limbs, the barest of smiles on his lips. He’s put on the smallest round lenses over his eyes to cover their serpent-like gleam, and he’s dressed himself in the highest fashion of the time, his chiton and himation made of fine wool and dyed a deep rich black. The decadence, Aziraphale thinks, tutting. He’s let his hair stay long, pulled back in a tight, braided bun, and wrapped it in black ribbons. 

“That wasn’t very sporting of you,” he says, scolding. Crowley smirks a bit and gestures with his head down toward the agora. 

Aziraphale’s eyes widen. “Oh yes, the play! I’d forgotten about the play!” He catches Crowley’s smile, genuine and full now, before dashing back to the agora. “Thank you!”

He reaches the top of the stairs and stops. It was rude of him to take off, he thinks. Perhaps he should invite Crowley to watch with him. After all, he did rescue him from Gabriel. He turns to go back, but no, the demon has already disappeared in the crowd. Below, the audience cheers again, and he squeezes himself into the back row.

He’s missed the first half but is riveted anyway. When Tereus captures Philomela and cuts out her tongue, tears spring from the corners of his eyes. The tapestry she weaves to tell her story of her punishment leaves him breathless, rich in colour and longing. And when the gods take pity and turn her into a nightingale, his heart aches for her, watching her flit away to freedom. 

After, Aziraphale pushes forward to the front of the stage, fighting the throng of people exiting during intermission before the next performance begins. He goes around to the back where the dressing rooms are in search of Sophocles to pay his compliments.

Instead, he runs into one of the actors, still wearing his mask of Philomela. “Oh! I’m terribly sorry,” Aziraphale says.

The actor pulls off his mask, revealing himself to be quite young. He’s got a shock of red curls on his head, tall and lithe. Aziraphale can see why he was cast for the role. 

“Have you seen Sophocles, my dear?” he asks the boy. 

“He took off already,” the boy says. “I hear he’ll be at the Symposium later tonight after all the performances. It’s hosted by the king! I plan to go myself.” 

Aziraphale shakes his hand. “Thank you for the information. And you were marvellous, by the way. I would love dearly to get my hands on a copy of the script.” He can imagine himself pouring over it in the late hours of the night, reading each word aloud to himself. He’ll never be able to see it performed again, not this way, but at least he can relive it off the page.

The boy frowns, saddened. “I’m afraid not. There was a fire just before the show backstage. Most of the pages were burned up. Sophocles only had the one copy.”

“Oh, dear. I see. That’s a shame.” He takes his hand again. “Well thank you for the stunning performance. Perhaps I will see you later at the party.”

He sighs. It always pains him when such great works are lost. He wants to see the other two performances, but he can’t imagine anything else beating out _Tereus._ What a marvellous production. What he would have given to get his hands on the manuscript.

He exits from the backstage to avoid the crowds, pausing outside to take in the breeze. The back of the agora looks over the Aegean Sea, the waters blue and crisp and calm for the season. Inhaling, he turns to leave but finds Crowley propped up against the wall, leaning back with one foot bent at the knee. He watches Aziraphale, a bit melancholic. 

“I suppose it was you who started the fire backstage?”

Crowley does nothing to confirm or deny it, his expression a cool mask. 

“It was a cruel thing you’ve done,” he says, the pitch of his voice elevating as he tries to tamp down the emotions. “Sophocles is one of the greatest playwrights I’ve ever seen, and he should be remembered throughout time.” 

When Crowley does nothing, Aziraphale sighs and throws his hands in the air. “Well all right then,” he says. “I’m off to Pericles’ symposium, and I’d rather have you in my sight lest you send Aeschylus up in flames.”

Crowley snorts at that, hiding an amused smile. He kicks off the wall and shrugs.

“No, I agree. He would deserve it,” Aziraphale says, nodding and a bit wistful, “but it still wouldn’t be right to let you get away with it.”

Crowley follows him to Pericles’ homestead. He has a way of slipping through unnoticed despite lacking an invitation. Under his strange dark frames, Aziraphale knows he’s vigilant, scanning the rooms for both danger and opportunity. He escorts him away from the gamblers and those engaged in harmless little games towards the buffet table. 

“Wine, please,” he tells a young servant, “and lots of it.” After collecting their food, Aziraphale leads them out into the back gardens.

Aziraphale would never be caught admitting it, but he likes Crowley. Just a bit. They sit down, backs resting on a marble-carved statue under the shade of a tree, and Aziraphale natters on about his latest blessings and the interesting going-ons at the Senate. It’s not like Crowley could tell anyone anyway, but Aziraphale’s never met anyone else who listens to him, gaze unwavering. The demon could get up and walk away at any time, but he chooses not to. 

And he likes watching Crowley, deciphering his little language. He can be so wild sometimes, loud grunts and angry gestures, hoarse and rasping laughter. His face bends into happiness or disgust with just a twist or a lift of his eyebrow. Aziraphale likes the micro-movements most though, the little bursts of surprise or interest conveyed in the smallest widening of his eyes, the barest tilt of his lips. When Crowley chooses to, his face appears as still as stone to most everyone except Aziraphale. 

Crowley hums a bit when he pops an olive in his mouth, a burst of saltiness on his tongue. He uses his long fingers to pick the pit from his teeth, thumbing the little seed in his fingers before flicking it to the dirt. He then reaches over and digs his finger into the soft cheese on Aziraphale’s plate and pops it in his mouth.

“I dare say,” Aziraphale says, affronted. He scoots his plate away and rolls his eyes when he catches Crowley’s smirk.

He pours them both more wine from the carafe, pondering over these thoughts. “I was surprised to see Gabriel today,” he says, still frustrated about missing the first half of the play. “He’s so… so… arrogant!” 

Crowley tilts his head in interest and sets his cup down. He leans forward, an elbow on his knee propping up his chin. He scowls when Aziraphale thanks him for coming to distract Gabriel.

“He said it was a surprise performance review as if I haven’t been doing anything but my best. And honestly, it almost felt like he _wanted_ me to miss the show.” Crowley perks up at that, leaning forward, hissing. “He kept trying to drag out the conversation, get me to dinner of all things!

“I did love the play, though. Sophocles is one of the greats. And all of that pain! Tereus wooing Philomela and how she tricks him. How he cut out her tongue to keep her from telling anyone what happened, oh! My heart aches. The nightingale at the end was a lovely touch, I thought. It’s so sad that the female nightingales can’t sing.”

Crowley moves a hand over his mouth. Aziraphale can see he has his eyes shut, hidden behind his glasses, breathing deep but quick breaths. He shakes his head. 

“I don’t know why you hated it so much you had to burn the manuscript. I don’t think I’ll ever quite understand you.” Aziraphale downs his wine, setting the cup on the base of the statue they’ve leaned against. “I guess that’s just our lot in life. Angels and demons.”

Crowley says nothing, of course, and looks away.


	5. Part I: iv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Art was created by the amazing [BeesAreAwesome](https://bees0are0awesome.tumblr.com/). You can find the masterpost for their big bang art [here](https://bees0are0awesome.tumblr.com/post/190302102870/art-masterpost-for-name-the-sky-by-nieded).
> 
> Ancient Egypt at the Library of Alexandria

For Aziraphale, it begins with Sophocles, but it takes root in Egypt in the Library of Alexandria.

He doesn’t mean to turn it into an obsession, really. In fact, almost half a millennium passes before he thinks about Tereus and Philomela again. It’s just that he’s a bit of a completionist, a collector of sorts. He likes his humans’ stories. They belong to his legions, and he feels a duty to remember them when no one else will. He recognizes a true mind when he sees one. Sophocles was a gift to his people, and only a fraction of his works remain. It’s a _shame._

He comes to Egypt by way of Greece and plays the role of a visiting Grecian diplomat. He likes the fine linen chiton, the flow of the garments wrapped around his body, and can’t imagine giving it up. The Egyptian men walk around half-naked, for goodness sake, decked with gold plated jewellery and headdresses. And anyway, as a Grecian diplomat he can garner interest from influential people.

It does draw some suspicion, however. There’s a war on and though it’s between the Egyptians and Julius’ Caesar’s army, the citizens are wary about foreigners. 

Aziraphale doesn’t know who to support in all of this. He suspects they’ll all be damned anyway. Julius Caesar is a brute and a tyrant, but Ptolemy XIII is no better, deposing his sister as queen out of jealousy. Aziraphale used to think he knew right from wrong. He always thought the righteous would prevail, but then the Spartans defeated Pericles, and that was that.

He sends several messages to Heaven for guidance but hears no response, so he does what small things he can. He walks through the quarries at night like a shadow, easing the slaves of their aches and wounds. He blesses the crops so the food will be plentiful and sits with the soldiers while bandaging their wounds. In his free time, he studies with the scholars and learns the ways of the priests, their offerings, their blessings, and their sacrifices. 

He goes to the Library of Alexandria. He devours everything in sight.

Aziraphale takes on the job as a scribe, translating foreign texts the ship merchants bring. He makes quick work of it, sitting in the halls of the library by torchlight, and it gains him access to every document and scroll available. He’s glad to be immortal, desiring to never leave this place until he’s turned over every single work.

It’s in this way he finds himself in trouble. Every morning and afternoon the messengers come by way of the docks with the new manuscripts. It’s the law that any passing merchant importing or exporting goods must bring a book with them to be transcribed as payment for landing. It keeps Aziraphale busy and distracts him from the building tensions in the city between Ptolemy and Caesar. 

He most often has his nose to the page, so he’s startled when the messenger that morning slams a stack of books down with such force it causes a plume of dust to explode.

Coughing, Aziraphale scowls at the boy. “Do be careful, young man,” he says. He looks up and startles.

The messenger is hardly a young man at all but instead a very smug serpent. Crowley stands there in a wrap skirt stopping just above his knees. It reveals a lot of leg. Aziraphale spots his fine leather sandals--worth much more than his station as a messenger--and catches his gaze lingering on the thin swell of his calves. It’s a better choice than looking upwards at his bare chest, decorated only by a stunning gold collar in the shape of a snake.

“Bit on the nose there, don’t you think?” he asks. “What are you doing here, anyway?” It’s a rhetorical question. It’s always a rhetorical question. 

Crowley wiggles his eyebrows a bit and snatches Aziraphale’s reed brush from his grasp. He ignores the angel’s protest as he steals a bit of spare papyrus. 

“That’s expensive. Do be careful.”

He watches as Crowley dips the brush with care in the inkwell and puts it to paper, the barest hint of a tremor coursing through his fingers. Aziraphale has never seen him take an interest in writing before, so he stares in surprise. What a wonderful way to finally be able to communicate with him. 

Crowley holds the brush between his fingers, the long point of his fingers coming together in tiny, delicate movements. His forked tongue peeks out in a hiss of concentration. When he’s finished, he shoves the paper back at him grinning. 

Aziraphale takes it with careful hands, looking down with excitement. Then he huffs and chucks it to the side. He spares him a rather offended look, flipping the paper over. “Thank you for wasting valuable papyrus.” He throws a stack of books over the rather rude and ill-drawn hieroglyphic. 

Crowley bows and salutes him. 

“Why don’t you write more?” he asks. 

Crowley flexes his hands in sharp jagged movements. The shiny scars that once cut through his tendons shine in the torchlight, a slight crick to each finger. He shoots Aziraphale a rather annoyed look.

“Right, I apologize. Ah,” he says. He recalls their first encounter in the Garden, the blood seeping from the demon’s mouth, his broken and swollen fingers. He shudders at the memory and then gathers his wits. “What a waste of energy to write _that_ of all things, then.” 

The demon lets out a rough bark of laughter, pleased, then moves to pull a chair up to Aziraphale’s table. 

They’re good at silence, Aziraphale thinks to himself. Crowley sprawls in his chair, a bit indecent for the length of his skirt, and leans over to watch the angel transcribe. Their breaths are low and quiet in the otherwise empty hall, the sound of the brush sweeping over the page. Silence is easy with Crowley. He can feign ignorance at Crowley’s mischievousness if they can’t talk about it. He doesn’t have to question why Crowley is there because he knows he won’t--can’t--get an answer. He squashes the thought down, dipping back into the inkwell.

In truth, he doesn’t want to know. If he knows Crowley’s misdeeds, he’ll have to thwart. If he thwarts him, he’ll lose this, the only person who can sit in silence with him. 

Crowley comes and goes over the next few days bearing more manuscripts. He sticks around for an hour or so to watch Aziraphale, sometimes leaning close to read along, hissing a bit when they’ve stumbled upon a historically inaccurate fact. Then he departs to do whatever it is demons do out of sight of angels.

He’s alone when he finds it amongst the stacks of un-scribed texts. It’s an innocuous thing, just a sheaf of papers bundled together, not at all like the leather-bound tomes the merchants bring. It’s written in a sharp, untidy scrawl, barely readable. 

_Procne and Philomela_ it says on the top. 

Aziraphale pauses, breathing a deep slow breath. He can smell the parchment, the salt of the sea. It must have come by way of Greece, perhaps with some of the other scholars or a shipment of wine. His fingers shake as he opens the cover and begins to read. 

> This is an account of the tragedy which befell the descendants of the god Hephaestus, son of Zeus: King Pandion and his daughters Procne and Philomela.
> 
> Philomela, sister to the Queen of Thrace and daughter to the King of Athens, was renowned for her most beautiful voice. She longed to be with her sister, Procne, to share joy once more with her kin. The King of Thrace, Tereus, deemed most kind and generous, travelled to Athens to retrieve Philomela to bring her to her sister. 
> 
> Her father, King Pandion, begged Tereus to treat Philomela with care, sad to see his youngest daughter depart. Tereus promised to treat her as his own and set a course to Thrace.
> 
> Young Philomela could not help her beauty, and in this way, Tereus could not help his lust for her, and so he came to her at night. Twice, she turned away from him. On the third night, she yielded, though it was with a heavy heart and body.

Aziraphale stops at the bottom of the parchment lost in thought, his heart heavy. How different this story begins than the tale of Sophocles. Hadn’t she seduced him in the play?

From outside the library, the sound of shouting and clashing metal can be heard from the streets, the stampede of horse hooves against the cobblestone. Aziraphale rushes to the window. So, Caesar has finally reached the heart of Alexandria. 

The sound of stone crumbling is heard from the entrance, shouts, and the staccato beat of marching men. The door to his study bursts open and Crowley rushes in, bringing with him the sound of shouting from the other scholars fleeing the library. 

Aziraphale moves to grab his belongings, shoving his inkwells and brushes in his bag. Crowley grabs him by the arm and jerks him from the table. “But the books!” Aziraphale shouts. 

The smell of smoke and heat billows through the open door. From the other side of the archway, they can see the fire eating up the scrolls, fueling the flames. “They’ve set the library on fire,” Aziraphale says, stunned. 

Crowley pulls on him again, but he cannot move, heart torn at the sight of so many works, so many devoted hours, and so much knowledge being eaten alive. With force, Crowley pushes him towards the windows. Aziraphale fights him, wants to go back for his things, for _Philomela_ , but the demon surprises him with his strength. 

They tumble out of the open window and into the streets of the high district, the acrid tang of blood in the air. Crowley hisses and leads them over bodies in the street, his magic allowing them to go undetected in the chaos. He doesn’t let go of Aziraphale’s arm, grip tight and bruising, until they’ve reached the outskirts of the district.

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, voice broken and panting. “What have they done? Those--those--horrid Romans.” He clenches his fists and wishes with desperation for his sword, the great lick of flame and cauterizing edge. The things he could do with it, that he wants to do with it, are incalculable and unholy.

Crowley has his hands in his hair, head tilted back. He’s lost his glasses in their escape, and Aziraphale can see the yellow of his eyes, full-blown and wild. Little shattered grunts escape him, almost sobs, at the sight of the destruction.

Aziraphale grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him. “Is Caesar one of yours?” he asks, shouting. “Is this all your doing?”

Crowley shakes his head and pushes the angel off of him. He gestures with wild arms towards the city, livid. Then he turns to Aziraphale, a snarl on his face, and spits at his feet. He stalks away.

Aziraphale lets him go, turning back to face the destruction. How blind he’d been, hiding in the library day in and out with his books. He knew the war was imminent, but he never thought they’d bring it within the city walls. He’d been tempted by the library, he realizes, and Crowley had been bringing him more and more tomes, little pieces of temptation to distract him from the reality outside. What Crowley was trying to accomplish, he doesn’t know. He’ll never know, he thinks.

He’s been played the fool. 

He stays on the outskirts of Alexandria for a while, helping refugees from the heart of the city to find new homes and work. At night, he sits with them and shares wine and food with them. He won’t abandon them this time, won’t turn his back.

He doesn’t see Crowley again in Egypt, but Gabriel, of all people, finds him one night sitting alone under a tree while his nation sleeps. Most nights it’s just him and the birds with their night song, waiting for the sun to come up, his thoughts stuck in a terminal loop, the memory of Crowley gripping the brush in his shaking hands, the laughter when Aziraphale saw his crude little hieroglyphic echoing from the crevice of his chest. He doesn’t understand how they got from that to the fire in a week.

“Good news,” Gabriel says, leaning one out-stretched arm against the tree Aziraphale rests under. “Ptolemy is dead. Finally.”

Aziraphale narrows his eyes, a long pregnant pause between them. “You mean to say Caesar was _your_ doing?”

His superior scoffs. “Well obviously. Ptolemy was a tyrant.”

“...Who was deposed by another tyrant.”

“Eh. Semantics.”

Aziraphale folds his hands in his lap. His body, usually vibrating with kinetic energy, sparks of little movements and gestures, sits in perfect stillness. “All those bodies,” he says after a long moment, void of inflexion. “All that knowledge. Gone.” 

Gabriel shrugs and picks at his fingernails. “What does it matter? When Armageddon comes, all of this will be a burning pile of mush anyway. No one will be left to remember or care.”

_I’ll remember_ , he thinks. That’s the difference between him and Gabriel. Gabriel comes from the highest order of angels, meant to rule over all other ethereal beings. His priority is with their own. Aziraphale, a young angel, had been formed from the same stuff that made planets and mortals. On his second day of existence, he went to Earth. His priority is with the humans, the living breathing creatures, their fragile heartbeats and tenacious wills. He is the ruler of small moments in the midnight hours, the high and tight emotion caught in one’s throat, of poetry, of longing, rejoicing, and grief. He’ll leave the grand schemes and machinations to someone else. He’s chosen his lot.


	6. Part I: v

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Renaissance Venice

And perhaps this is the true beginning of his obsession with Philomela. Before, it’d been a passing interest, a missed opportunity. Once Aziraphale decides where his loyalties lie, he’s desperate to complete the story for humanity’s sake. Here was once a great story, lost and incomplete. He can’t save them all, but maybe he can save just this one. 

He never does apologize to Crowley about the Library of Alexandria. How does one apologize for assuming the other is responsible for the entire destruction of a city? How does an angel apologize to a demon? When they meet it never comes up. Aziraphale always finds himself swallowing his own tongue, and it turns out the right amount of alcohol will erase any ill will, even for angels and demons.

It weighs on him, however. Crowley doesn’t seem to care and carries on as if nothing has changed, but Aziraphale finds himself turning it over in his mind at night. Aziraphale thinks about Crowley’s bare chest adorned in gold, the short length of his wrap, and the delicate leather of his sandals curled around the fine bone of his ankle. _I named you_ , he thinks. _I healed you_. _I shouldn’t want you._

They pass by each other throughout the years, once in the 14th century, again when Aziraphale is in hot pursuit of Shakespeare’s folios and the playwright himself. Crowley flits by like a shadow. He’s a spectre in the night. He’s the ghost of a touch. They meet again and again like waves coming together before arching apart, the gleam of his eyes, the sharp rasp of laughter, mischievousness and temptation calling Aziraphale before slipping off into the night.

He becomes a collector of sorts. He follows the story of Philomela wherever it goes, stopping to perform miracles, never shirking his duties but always in hot pursuit. He saves Chaucer’s poem _The Legend of Good Women_ , the story retold as if it came to him in a dream, and Aziraphale mourns that it never gets finished. He stands in the pit night after night, watching Shakespeare's _Titus Andronicus_. He mouths along with the words. He weeps when they cut out Lavinia’s tongue and sever her hands, when they kill her.

It’s a mournful story, no matter how it’s told. He staggers under the weight of it. 

It leads him to Venice in the high tide of the Renaissance, the stink of the waters and the beauty of the architecture clashing against his senses. It takes him to da Vinci, who Aziraphale heard has been commissioned to complete a painting for Lorenzo de Medici. He’s seen the inventor’s other magnificent works, and his heart aches to see his newest creation.

He doesn’t know what to expect, but of all things, he does not anticipate Gabriel sitting in da Vinci’s messy studio in a glaring white doublet adorned in the finest gold stitching. Gabriel smiles at him when he enters, seemingly unsurprised to find him there. “Aziraphale,” he says, with the barest of nods.

Aziraphale thinks of the bloodshed in Alexandria, hot flames and the way the papyrus smoked as it burned. He schools his face into indifference. “Oh,” he says. “Hello.”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit garish?” Gabriel asks, gesturing at the painting da Vinci is bent over, as if the painter can’t hear him ten feet away.

Da Vinci straightens and steps back to assess his work. Then he addresses Gabriel as if they are old friends. “Do you think Lorenzo will find it too much?”

“Assuredly,” Gabriel says. “He wants a mural to hang in his halls. He wants romantic, idyllic, Greek mythology.”

“Then perhaps he commissioned the wrong story,” da Vinci says with a huff, but he turns to the painting with consideration.

Aziraphale says nothing, aching at the sight of it. It’s incomplete, but the agony on Philomela’s face is evident in the gape of her mouth open in a scream. A dark shadow falls on Tereus where he looms over her as he wields his bloody knife. His face twists into that of a monster, clawed fingers, his mouth an open hungry maw. “I think it does the story justice,” he says after a long moment.

Gabriel rolls his eyes. “Medici wants beauty and elegance, not a monstrosity. Of all people, you should know that.”

“Ah,” da Vinci says, hands on his hips. “I fear my friend is right. It clashes with the opulence of his villa.”

Gabriel smiles at Aziraphale, smug. 

He comes back in two weeks, sighing in relief when Gabriel’s gone. Leonardo da Vinci has stuck with his decision and changed the painting. He’s erased the darkness, awashed them in light. The two figures stand in a garden, Philomela turned away from Tereus with a hand over her face as if to hide the hideousness underneath. The king now cuts a pale, ethereal figure. Even the way he holds his knife is delicate, not a drop of blood in sight. 

What once was a horrific rendering of a sickening story has been muted and censored. Philomela’s pain and agony have been erased. Aziraphale hates Gabriel for it. It’s an ugly thought but true.

Shaking, he leaves in search of a distraction. He needs something, anything, to fill the canyon inside him. The thought of food turns his stomach, and he finds himself wandering listlessly through the narrow cobblestone streets of Venice, across footbridges, ducking under awnings. He’s lost.

It’s divine intervention that he finds himself standing in the square of San Marco Basilica. It calls to him, this bit of holiness. The mosaic on the front of the building is beautiful and intricate, the marble statues lifelike and angelic. This is what he loves most, humanity exalting upwards as if to touch Heaven itself. These are his legions. He is the principality of human invention, beauty, and creation. He can feel the godliness here.

Inside the basilica, he stares up at the wondrous mosaics, the vaulted ceilings dappled in gold and illuminated by the shine of light from the domes. The choir rehearses hymns and liturgies, and their voices reverberate in the wide-open space. The people who walk through here are quiet, reverent. Aziraphale feels the magic, the power of belief, the prayers that give birth to saints and miracles. It feels a bit like flying.

He senses the shadow before he sees it. It’s an old call to his senses. The fine hairs on his neck and arms stand. He turns and knows Crowley hasn’t seen him yet, and he takes a moment to stare.

The demon has tucked himself in the corner. He stands tip-toe on a crate above sanctified ground, balancing just on the edge. His fingers hover an inch away from a support pillar as if sheer will will keep him upright. Two beams of light from the domed roof peer down on either side of him, and he stands in the shadow, head cocked, ear to the choir, glasses off and eyes shut. Aziraphale can see his chest lifting with each swell of song, fingers twitching in time with the bars. And suddenly Aziraphale can hear the choir’s clarity more than before, the ring to their voices aching and pure, the high notes of the castrati reverberating off the buttresses, searing the very core of him, bright and cleansing as if God herself sings. 

The light shifts. It pours over Crowley, and he opens his eyes, startled by its warmth. Their eyes meet, the yellow of his iris reflecting off the ornate gold mosaic walls. 

And then the moment breaks when the crate beneath him slips. He falls, catching himself on the pillar, hissing as his feet touch the floor. Crowley scrambles upright, turning from Aziraphale before slipping off into the shadows. 

Heady and dizzy, he lets him go. It frightens Aziraphale how he wants to devour him. 

He should leave off, return to England or travel north to Rome. He should not walk the streets of Venice in pursuit of that dark shadow, the static in the air before a storm, that flash of something dipping around the corner. Aziraphale should keep his eyes to the heavens and not to the ground. He should just be better. 

Instead, he follows his instincts to the lower district, of all places. The drunks stagger around the streets, men hiding from their wives and young aristocrats on the hunt, taking as they please. It reeks of lust and covetousness, the sound of blasphemy echoing from an upstairs window in ecstasy as someone takes their pleasure.

There’s greed here too. The matrons of the brothels run a tight business, trading deals under tables and influencing politics perhaps more so than the nobleman and bankers. The Church may turn their nose up at the seedy little corners of Italy, but Aziraphale senses the power here as strong and resonant as sanctified ground, if not as holy. The courtesans are well educated and cordial. They’re often looked down on, but he knows it takes a certain skill to appeal to all people, to shapeshift for one patron to the next, and they can be more forgiving than most. Humans find holiness in every corner they eke out.

He finds the place he’s looking for and steps into the parlour, a bit nervous. The place is decked out in the finest upholstery, heavy velvet drapes, and ornate gilded trim on the wall. 

A woman whom he assumes is the matron swans over at the sight of him and takes his hand. Her hands are neat and groomed, worn with age. “Signore, welcome. I am Signora Valentina. What sort of pleasure are you looking for? Would you like to meet my girls?”

“I, oh, um…” Aziraphale gets caught up looking at her. She has the disposition of someone sweet and gentle, but underneath he senses her cunningness. She’s formidable, and he sees why Crowley would come here. “Not as such, no,” he says. “I’m looking for someone else.”

She appraises him, gaze drifting from head to toe. “Ah, I understand. You’ll want to go two streets over to Signora Gianna. She has a few young men more to your liking.”

“Oh, no. No, you misunderstand. I’m looking for someone in particular. He’s tall, red hair, quite thin, wears all black. I’ve been led to believe he’s residing here.”

She hesitates. Her congenial facade shifts into wariness, assessment. “I don’t know anyone of that description. You must be mistaken.”

“Look,” Aziraphale says in his most placating manner. “Tell him… Tell him _l’angelo_ is here to see him, and if he refuses me, I’ll leave.”

Signora Valentina considers him for a long moment before nodding. “Wait here.”

He waits for a good ten minutes while she heads upstairs, rocking on the balls of his feet. Some of the girls come out to lean over the balcony of the second floor to stare at him in interest. Their scrutiny unnerves him. It’s a bit like standing in front of the Seraphim, their hundred eyes assessing and left wanting for something else.

Signora Valentina returns to the top of the stairs and gestures with her hand for him to come. He walks past the courtesans, and they turn one-by-one to watch him as he passes each woman. His eyes flit between them and the floor. 

She leads him to the last door at the end of the hall, and when she knocks on the door, a harsh grunt responds. Inside, Crowley sits in a plush chair, melding into his surroundings in his all-black doublet and leggings. His face is wary, lips pressed into a thin line and his jaw clenched tight.

Aziraphale sees his red and blistered hands cradled to his chest and turns to Signora Valentina. “Soap and warm water, if you will. Quick as you please. And linens if you have them.”

She nods and slips from the room. 

He kneels in front of Crowley’s chair and reaches for his hands, hesitating when the demon pulls back. “Let me, please. It was my fault you fell.”

The static builds between them as they stare at each other for a long moment before Crowley relents, extending his mottled hands. The skin of the palms is burned raw from touching the sanctified ground where he fell, the skin peeling, shiny and wet. His angelic powers won’t heal these wounds. He takes them in his own hands and examines them with care.

Aziraphale wonders what Crowley intended, standing in San Marco Basilica. It’s a sight he can’t get out of his head, imprinted in his memory every time he shuts his eyes. Crowley was a vision, body taut, eyes shut. His lips were parted as he leaned towards the sound of the choirs, every inch of him keen. There was a pleasure to his face but also agony.

Signora Valentina returns with a bowl of water before leaving them again, and Aziraphale takes it, setting it in Crowley’s lap. He dips Crowley’s hand in it, his thumb rubbing the smooth plane of his wrist in a slow and steady motion. He moves on to the next hand and then lets Crowly pat the skin dry before wrapping it in linens.

To fill the silence, he begins to chatter. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says, voice quiet between them. “I only meant to get away from Gabriel. He’s wretched you know.”

Crowley grunts in something like an affirmation. 

“I went to see Leonardo da Vinci. He painted the most magnificent scene. Do you remember the story of Tereus and Philomela? We saw it in Greece maybe… two millennia ago?” Crowley stills under his hands. “Maybe it’s foolish to dwell on something for so long, but I do hold that story dear. Do you remember it?

“Tereus is meant to protect Philomela, his own wife’s sister. Instead, he lusts after her, takes her for his own, and punishes her. And in the end, the gods pity her, turning her into a nightingale so she may fly away. I… I ache just thinking of it.

“Anyway, Gabriel was there. He’s gone and affiliated himself with the Medicis. He convinced da Vinci to change the painting, to make it more… Beautiful!” Aziraphale’s fingers seize around Crowley’s hands, caught up in his own anger. “And it was an ugly painting, Crowley, hideous. But it’s an ugly story. Covering it up just undoes its power.”

He finishes wrapping Crowley’s hands and moves to his feet, cupping his heel with careful hands as he slides the soft leather shoes off. His hands shake a bit as he reaches for his silken hose, rolling them down the smooth, narrow calf. Crowley jerks under his touch, and they both still for a long moment, neither looking at each other before Aziraphale dips his blistered foot into the warm water.

After a moment, he continues. “These humans want to paint everything in God’s image, dappled in light and cherubic fancy,” he says, “but She created them in her image already, beauty and ugliness and all.” He takes a deep breath, eyes fixed on Crowley’s feet, smoothing his hands over the peeling skin. “Do you think… godliness can be ugly?”

It’s a damning thought now that it’s escaped his lips. He can’t take it back, can’t snatch it from the air and swallow it back down. It hangs between them, and he wishes more than ever Crowley could speak. Aziraphale looks up at him, and their eyes meet. Crowley’s face twists into sadness, perhaps pity, knowing. 

Aziraphale’s hands still, one hand wrapped around the fine bone of his ankle, the other curled around the narrow muscle of his calf. _You know me now_. _I’ve healed you_ , he thinks. _I shouldn’t want you._

He lets go, shaking his wet hands and gives Crowley a towel. He stands and backs up, looking for distance. “Forget I said it. Perhaps Gabriel is right. God is beautiful. She’s forgiving.”

Crowley says nothing, not a grunt or a breath. He’s careful wrapping his own feet, pulling his hose back up. He puts his shoes on and stands, testing his weight. He walks to the door of his quarters, and Aziraphale thinks this is it, he’s leaving, he’s mucked it all up, but then Crowley takes his hand and pulls him through the doorway. 

_Come on_ , his face says, the tilt of his head. 

He leads them down the stairs of the brothel and out into the streets of Venice, the courtesans and matron watching them with curiosity like predators on a hunt. Aziraphale is grateful to be out of there and into the open air. Night falls and the city is mostly quiet except for a few revellers and their quiet footfalls on the cobblestone. They wander the streets, seemingly without reason, until Crowley halts in front of a nondescript door near the markets. 

In the dark, Aziraphale takes a long moment to recognize it. “We’re outside da Vinci’s studio,” he says when it clicks.

Crowley smiles. It’s toothy and sharp. Without his glasses on, his eyes glitter by the light of the moon with mischievousness. He casts his hand over the door, and the lock releases, swinging open.

“What are we doing here?” Aziraphale asks, knowing he won’t get a response. Rhetorical, it’s always rhetorical with Crowley.

In the dark, Crowley moves silently as a serpent, his footfalls light as he slips through the cluttered space. Even right in front of him, Aziraphale can’t find him, can’t see much of anything. He hears the demon clap once the way he does when pleased, and then he appears from the shadows carrying a large square canvas, startling the angel.

They step back out onto the street. He turns the canvas around and reveals the bastardized painting of Tereus and Philomela, taking a jaunty step before spinning on the ball of his foot, pleased. He holds a jar of liquid in his other hand and starts off down the street.

“Crowley! What are we doing?” Aziraphale asks after him, jogging to catch up. 

They stop at the edge of an unoccupied dock, and Crowley lays the painting down face up. In the moonlight, Tereus cuts a chiselled marbled figure. The demon sneers at it and uncorks the jar he brought with him. Aziraphale recognizes its smell in an instant. Turpentine. Crowley begins pouring it liberally over the art, watching the oils dissolve and ooze together. 

“That! That’s a priceless work! What are you thinking?”

Crowley ignores him and works his jaw, satisfied at the sight of the ruined visage. He chucks the empty bottle to the side and then snaps his fingers, sparks showering from his fingertips. They land on the canvas, setting it alight. They watch it burn for a long moment, the flames licking upward into the sky. Then Crowley nudges it with one foot and pushes it into the water. It floats away, a raft of fire reflecting in the water until it bends out of sight. 

Aziraphale should protest more, but all he feels is relief. After a long moment he says, “Thank you.”

Crowley smiles, slow and liquid, a fire in itself. He steps forward and takes Aziraphale’s face in both hands, an echo to the Garden of Eden where they first met. For a moment, Aziraphale thinks he might draw him closer, that they might kiss, and the desire wells up inside him.

But no, Crowley just looks, eyes narrowing. Whatever he finds in Aziraphale’s face leaves him satisfied. He lets go and steps back into the shadow, still facing him until he’s out of sight, silent as ever.

Aziraphale stands there next to the dock alone and stares into the dark, breath heavy and harsh. He thinks of standing in the basilica, the yearning look on Crowley’s face now mirrored in his own body. _You’ve healed me_ , he thinks. _I want you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That is the end of Part I!


	7. Part II: i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Part II! Chapters are going to be a bit longer as momentum builds. Hope you enjoy!

He doesn't mean for it to happen, but Crowley becomes part of his legion. Aziraphale can’t help it. It’s in his nature. The Seraphim put him in Eden and said, “Protect all those who walk here,” so he did. He has. 

He’s the principality of deja vu, the rasp of broken laughter, and the song of nightingales outside of windows in the witching hour. He is the guardian of brief encounters after centuries apart, the splatter of turpentine, of unspoken words in soft moments without witness. It frightens him, the way Crowley slinks just outside of his periphery, like trying to hold water in his hands.

Aziraphale hones his skill at finding Crowley, learns to focus on that feeling of heightened awareness, the sensation of being stared at from across the street. He tracks it from the corner of his eye. He keeps Crowley close, within an hour or two’s distance, circling around and around like a moon in orbit. Crowley is his own planet. Crowley has gravity. It’s just physics, Aziraphale thinks, natural, like an apple falling from a tree.

Then there’s the matter of the apocalypse. Gabriel starts coming around a bit more. “Just checking in!” he says with a grin and a punch to the arm. He leans in close, private, eyes darting around them. “You haven’t seen any increased _demonic_ activity have you?”

It sets Aziraphale’s teeth on edge. He thinks about the gleam in Crowley’s eyes, the snap of his fingers and curl of silent laughter as he sent a dotty old squire on his horse over the wall and into a pond during a dressage tournament for turning his nose up at Aziraphale. “No,” he says, answering Gabriel’s question. “Everything is right as rain. Should I be worried?”

They cross London Bridge, both donned in top hats, waistcoats, and spats. Gabriel stops at the halfway point, waiting for a carriage to pass them before leaning close again. “I suspect it’s going to happen soon.”

“What?”

“ _It_. The… Antichrist.”

Aziraphale rears back, eyes wide. He stops with a jerk and gasps. “Has… Has She said anything?”

Gabriel sighs and pockets his hands. “No, of course not,” he says as though speaking to a rather dim child. “You know no one has heard from Her since the Fall.”

Aziraphale deflates. He spares one glance upward at the sky before his eyes shutter. “Then how do you know? How much time do we have left?”

“It’s been written. Could be tomorrow. Could be in a century or two. It’ll be soon though, so keep your eyes open. Be vigilant”

He shudders. Gabriel continues his trek across the bridge, but Aziraphale stops, feet unwilling to move. _Oh_.

After Crowley had sent the snotty squire into the pond, Aziraphale stilled his hand, wrapping his fingers around Crowley’s wrist in admonishment. Under his fingers, he thought he could feel the strong corded muscle, the delicate veins and skin, and the line of a jagged scar despite layers of fabric separating them. His hand had lingered and Crowley allowed it, and they sat there for some time in the stands watching people try to lasso the runaway horse while the squire clung for his life. 

“It isn’t funny,” he said, biting back a smile. He couldn’t contain his mirth though, and Crowley knew it. “Oh for shame.” He covered his mouth with his free hand.

The horse sprinted across a nearby wheat field, the echoes of the squire’s fearful shouts reaching them where they sat. Crowley grinned, all teeth, as Aziraphale squeezed his wrist. 

He thinks about the horse-drawn carriages, how hooves sound clopping against the cobblestone. He thinks about the fog early in the mornings and the sound of rain in the afternoons. He shakes at the thought of it destroyed. The devil would take this from him, the only home he’s known and loved.

Later, he says to Crowley, “Let’s get dinner,” standing in St. James Park. He looks at the water, demanding, not asking. When he turns to lead the way, Crowley follows.

“I’ve been dwelling on the Great Plan,” he says, cutting into his steak. “I’ve gathered quite the collection of books of prophecy, but I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

Crowley grunts. His hands shake where he grips his utensils, breaking open his pasty with indelicate force. His jaw works, slow and deliberate, adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. Aziraphale follows the motion with his eyes.

He takes a sip of wine and brushes away invisible crumbs on the fine wool of his greatcoat. He chooses his words with care. “I shouldn’t be telling this to a demon, of all things! But you’ve been here just as long as I have. This is home, and I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing it destroyed. Don’t you agree?”

In public, Crowley has his glasses on. It’s hard to read his expression. He pauses in chewing, his cup halfway to his mouth. Swallowing hard, he lets out a startled sound and the nearby patrons turn to look.

Aziraphale nods. “That’s what I mean. Your side. My side. A war. All of this just… gone.” He chews for a moment, thoughtful. His eyes flicker to the demon’s face as he wars with the words inside of himself. “I do wish,” he says after a beat, “Well. I wish I knew Her plan. I wish I could hear Her voice.”

Crowley’s cup falls to the table with a hard thud, the wine sloshing over the side. Aziraphale can read the tension in his jaw, see the way his gnarled hands tremble. 

“My dear, I didn’t mean to startle you but--”

Crowley pushes away from the table, his chair scraping against the floor, harsh and loud. He throws his napkin on the table and stalks out.

“Oh, oh dear,” Aziraphale says.

He doesn’t hear from Crowley for several weeks and wonders if he read it all wrong. Maybe Crowley does want the apocalypse. Maybe he wants to watch it burn with the rest of them, the demons and angels alike. But then he thinks about France in the 1700s, sitting on a bench after eating berries dipped in sweet cream. A soft, round bumblebee had flitted to Crowley’s shaking fingers, curious about the sweetness there, and he’d watched with the slightest smile curled on his lips, delighted. He loves this earth, just as much if not more.

He’s surprised, then, when Crowley finds him later in St. James Park feeding the ducks. He storms over, the tails of his greatcoat fluttering behind him in fervour, and he stops in front of the bench. 

“Crowley, hello,” Aziraphale says, biting back the relief in his voice. “Do sit with me.” 

Crowley remains standing and digs his hands into his pockets. He fumbles for a piece of paper, shoving it in Aziraphale’s face. 

He opens it. In jagged large letters, written with effort, it reads _holy water_ and _hellfire._ “What is the meaning of this?”

The demon huffs, frustrated. He jabs at his own chest with a finger.

“You want this?” A nod. Aziraphale sputters. “No, absolutely not. This would destroy you. What an utterly foolish idea!”

Crowley snatches back the paper, ripping it in two. He looks at the sky, gesturing upwards at the heavens with a rude gesture and then spits at Aziraphale’s feet. 

“Be reasonable!”

Crowley snarls and turns on his heel.

Aziraphale watches him go, hands balled into fists. “Oh!” he says with a growl. He bends over and picks up the scraps of paper. Holy water. And hellfire. He traces his fingers over the sharp shape of the letters before pocketing them. “Why would you ask for both?” he wonders to himself. He aches at the thought of Crowley just… gone. He’s never even been discorporated before, at least that Aziraphale knows of. 

“I won’t allow it,” he says, alone. 

Crowley goes missing for good this time. Aziraphale still senses him, though, and knows he hasn’t travelled far. He’s his compass pointing north, the arrow never moving. Aziraphale stays in London, walking the Serpentine, collecting books and stories and people. He makes friends with Keats and Wilde. He hoards and covets them. This is his, this ugly place: the smog and hunger and greediness. This is his: birdsong in the morning and the way the light cuts through the clouds in beams, the sound of laughter as the drunks stumble home in the evening, the velocipedes and the streetlamps and the whisper of skin on skin holding hands.

He sits through the night reading poetry: _Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! / No hungry generations tread thee down; / The voice I hear this passing night was heard / In ancient days by emperor and clown._ He circles an old brick building in Mayfair, looking upwards at the second floor at his fixed point, Crowley, never moving or changing.

He waits a year, two, before he gives in and climbs the steps up to Crowley’s flat. He pushes his way inside, a spacious open floor empty except for a bed, curtains drawn, the fire cold and the shape of a body in slumber. He stares for a long time, maybe days, at his sleeping form before he reaches a hand to his chest, feels Crowley take slow drawn in breaths. Aziraphale brushes the dust from his hair, stokes the fire, and sits at the foot of the bed. He reads out loud to him. _Was it a vision, or a waking dream? / Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?_ He leaves and comes back and leaves again, a metronome swinging back and forth, steady as a heartbeat.

While Crowley sleeps and sleeps and sleeps, Aziraphale’s collection multiplies. He grows covetous over his legion, the threat of Armageddon looming over him. He opens his bookshop and fills it with tomes, his own little library like an echo of Alexandria. He stacks his retellings of Philomela, the old fragmented manuscript of _Tereus_ , next to his books of prophecy. He bares his teeth at patrons who come and thumb at the pages. 

He stands at the foot of Crowley’s bed and aches.

When Crowley finally wakes, it’s the turn of the century, and things are left fragile between them. He has a hunted look about him, keeps his distance from Aziraphale though he doesn’t travel too far, like he has his own orbit and is victim to this same gravity. Aziraphale doesn’t know how to say the things he wants. _I named you. I need you._ _I can’t be the one who kills you._ Round and round they go.

Time moves like light, fleeting and quick-paced. Horse-drawn carriages turn to automobiles, musical instruments are transmuted into radios. Aziraphale wants everything to slow down. They’re hurtling towards the end, he thinks, and he’s unprepared. He was made to be a principality, and though his faith in Heaven winning a war against the damned is unwavering, who is he without Earth? The angels might not understand, but they told him to protect this place, so he did. He handed them his sword. He’s given them his nights and held their hands through death and invention. He cherishes their stories. He fears for their lives. 

The pendulum swings back and forth, time accelerating from adagio to allegretto to stringendo, hurtling forward faster and faster. It makes him reckless. He hoards his books and fills his belly with the best dishes the world has to offer. He sits in the park and watches the children run, collecting laughter and bright colours and the way rain feels in a fine mist. Hedonism becomes a chore. He’s gluttonous and greedy. He must remember when no one else will so he consumes everything. _Just slow down_ , he pleads.

In 1939, Armageddon arrives or so Aziraphale believes. He keeps an ear to the radio and watches the propaganda films in the theatre before the pictures begin. He orders every single newspaper in print and sits by the light of his gloomy storefront windows pouring over them in fear. Gabriel had said they’d all know the Antichrist. He’d be a boy with uncontrollable powers and that the entirety of Heaven, Hell and Earth would light up upon his birth.

Had Aziraphale just not been paying attention? What had he been doing the year of 1889 when Adolf Hitler had been born, just a babe? He had been keeping vigil at Crowley’s bedside and running his little shop, guarding his constituents. And where was he when _Mein Kamf_ had been published, the year of 1925? Hoarding a different selection of books, rare edition bibles, Wilde, and his evermore coveted retellings of Greek mythology.

For a moment he blames Crowley for his own inattentiveness. That’s the true demon’s work, distracting him from the oncoming end of the world. _Look at me, don’t look at the monster being born 600 miles to the east._ But no, Crowley had been asleep, curled on one side with his knees tucked to his chest, the curls of his hair grown long and untamed. It was Aziraphale’s fault for not paying attention.

He thinks about calling on Gabriel, but what would he say? _So sorry, I was reading poetry to a demon and missed the start of the apocalypse. Please provide further instruction_. He hasn’t even heard from his superior since the early 1800s. It’s just been him and his legions, silent, alone and unravelling. 

So when Captain Rose Montgomery of British Military Intelligence steps foot in his dusty little bookshop, Aziraphale resolves himself to do better. He likes the look of her, sharp-toothed and clever. She wanders around the shop, each step graceful and contained. When she turns to him, it’s with a force of brilliance and single-minded focus. It makes Aziraphale twitch under the scrutiny, like standing for judgment before all of Heaven.

“I hear you’re a collector of rare books,” she says. 

He recoils on the inside. It’s never good when someone comes snooping around for his rarest possessions. Possessiveness burns inside him and his hands curl into fists in their pockets. Then he has to remind himself there’s a war on, not just between humans but for Heaven and Hell. “Ah yes,” he says, releasing a quick sharp breath. “I can find you most anything given enough time.”

“I’m looking for books on prophecy.” She pulls a list from her pocket and hands it to him. “Do you recognize these?”

He gasps and shuts the paper, then reopens it once more. “Some of these are the utmost precious. What do you plan to do with them?”

“That’s above your paygrade,” Montgomery says. 

Aziraphale wars with himself. He has most all of the books, except Agnes Nutter. “I want to help the British cause in any way possible,” he says, “but I need to know what will happen to the books first. I could be of use to you.”

She assesses him for a long moment before relenting. “Fine, bring the books and you will be debriefed at this location.” She hands him a card. “Until then, we’ll be watching you.” She makes to leave, and he rushes to open the door for her. On the way out, she grabs his forearm, fingernails sharp through the wool of his jacket. “Do not mention this to anyone if you value your life. Understood?”

“Perfectly.”

This is how he ends up in a convoluted plot to undermine German intelligence in Great Britain. It’s a bit thrilling, and he feels good being able to take action. He suggests the church as a meeting place with the Nazis. _May God be your witness_ , he thinks. 

He doesn’t tell Crowley though he wants to. It wouldn’t do good to spill all of his secrets to the enemy, after all. He hasn’t seen him in maybe a decade or two, but he’s lingered in England, Aziraphale’s constant fixed point, a shadow dancing in the back of his mind, a ghost keeping him company through late nights. 

And after Crowley comes and rescues him in the church, Aziraphale feels the fool. But he also wonders how the demon knew to find him. Does he feel it too? This pull of gravity? If Crowley is the shadow just passing out of sight, is Aziraphale the flash of light from the corner of his eye?

Crowley had come sprinting down the aisle of the church, shoes skidding on the marble as he hissed, and when Montgomery and the Nazis turned their guns on him, he gripped the muscle of Aziraphale’s upper arm so hard it left bruises. 

“What are you doing here?” Aziraphale asked, a bit breathless at the sight of him, fear warring with relief. 

Crowley grunted and jabbed a finger upwards at the peak of the church and then pointed back on Aziraphale. He signed the cross over his chest. _A miracle_. 

“My, what an animal you have,” Montgomery said, sneering. Crowley turned to her then and snarled, his teeth sharp, the shape of his face transforming in the shadow of the candlelight into something monstrous. 

Aziraphale looked upwards at the buttresses and heard the low rumble of fighters soaring overhead accompanied by a high pitched whistle. “Oh! _Oh_ ,” he said, gripping his wrist. He turned to Montgomery, the traitor, and the Nazis. “Change of plans, my dear. I’m afraid you’ve still been played for suckers.” 

The high scream of the missiles neared closer, and they all turned to look upward. Crowley pressed himself against Aziraphale’s back, a low rasp to his breaths. Aziraphale gripped his wrist harder and thought, _You saved me. Now I’ll save you._

When the dust settled, Crowley placed the bag of books in his hands, curling his fingers over Aziraphale’s knuckles. He’d lost the glasses, every inch of fear and anger writ on his face. Aziraphale closed his eyes against it, ashamed.

Now, sitting in the Bentley, he grips the book in his lap for something to hold onto, searching for the words. “I am an idiot,” he says.

Crowley huffs in agreement. 

“I just had to do something. I thought this is it. These are the end times. How can this be anything but the apocalypse?” 

Crowley looks at him, eyes luminous by the light of the street lamps. He looks haggard, grief-stricken. He swallows hard and shakes his head.

Aziraphale closes his eyes, fights off the welling feeling rising in his chest. “This must be the cause of demonic intervention. It has to be.” His voice wavers. “This can’t be all the humans’ doing, can it?” 

It’s always rhetorical with Crowley, but the silence in response to his question is telling. 

After a moment he says, “Just take me home, please.” 

Aziraphale invites Crowley into the bookshop and refuses to get out of the Bentley until he agrees. Crowley hobbles inside, gripping the edge of the doorway and then the desk. Aziraphale pushes him into an overstuffed chair and fetches bandages and soapy water, kneeling at his feet. “We have to stop meeting like this,” he says. It’s meant to be a joke, but it falls flat. 

He makes quick work of the fine leather shoes, stripping off the thick cotton socks, and rucking up the wool of his pinstripe pant leg over his calf. How much they’ve changed, he thinks, from silk stockings and doublets to wool suits and felted hats. Yet this is the same demon, the same narrow calf, the hint of a vein travelling down and over the swell of his ankle, the same pained hiss from blistered feet from standing on consecrated ground.

Aziraphale is a very different angel from the one who walked the Garden of Eden. He can’t be the same, not like this on his knees in the dark.

“I should say thank you,” he says.

Crowley turns and stares out the window. He shakes his head once.

“No, I need to say it. I need you to listen.” He waits until Crowley’s eyes are back on him, the weight of his gaze penetrating. Aziraphale cups his heel in his hand, fingers wrapped around the fine bones of his feet. “Thank you.” 


	8. Part II: ii

The thing Aziraphale doesn’t understand about Philomela is the beginning. He always misses that part. He missed it in Greece in Sophocles’ tragedy and only has the fragments of a burnt copy remaining. He missed it in the Library of Alexandria, getting through the first page before the whole manuscript and half of the library’s treasures went up in flames. Gabriel had said she was beautiful, a temptress, the second daughter to a king with the voice of a songbird. She had a voice that drove Tereus to madness.

He collects with care now, all these stories. He’s more vigilant. He won’t be played the fool again. He spends decades looking over his shoulder, waiting for the end times. 

This is how he hears about a heist going down in his own backyard in Soho, a rumour about a curious man dressed in all black, dark glasses, and hair as red as fire who burns just as bright. He only speaks with cash. Mafia, they say. Nobody questions why he wants to rob a church of all places because the money speaks for itself.

Aziraphale debates with himself. He thinks about their fateful meeting in St. James Park. He even kept the note Crowley had written asking for holy water and hellfire both which he pulls out of a drawer with shaky hands. He thinks about cradling Crowley’s blistered skin after he saved him from the Nazis. Decided, he pulls on his jacket and storms off to find the Bentley, thermos in hand.

He surprises Crowley in his car. Usually, it’s the other way around, the demon always popping up around corners, spooking him from the shadows with a toothy grin. He hands over the thermos of holy water and turns away, unable to look at him and his ridiculous hair, the round dark glasses that make his face seem longer and more harrowing, the slender line his torso cuts in his black jumper. 

“Let’s get dinner. Next week, not tonight. Promise me you’ll meet me at the Ritz?”

Crowley holds the thermos with surprising care. He uses both hands. His long fingers wrap around the tartan exterior, and he looks a bit silly sitting in the dark with his glasses on. He nods. 

Aziraphale extends his arm for a handshake. “Promise me,” he repeats, voice firm and low. When Crowley takes his hand, he says, “Good,” and exits the car in quick fashion, swallowing down the hard lump caught in his throat.

This ends their habit of meeting once every decade or century. Aziraphale makes them meet at a minimum monthly. He ends every evening with a handshake and a promise. “Find me at St. James Park, two weeks,” and Crowley always agrees, humouring him.

He fears the day Crowley doesn’t show up, when he decides this earth and eternity aren’t worth it anymore. He fears the day his northern star, the shiver of shadow in the back of his mind, flickers out for good.

They go for dinner, sampling every cuisine London has to offer. It’s a far cry from the travelling they did before both settling in London, but there’s something to be said about having culture come to them in their own backyard. They go to plays and concerts, long walks along the Thames, and sometimes they pass the hours in silence in the back of the bookshop while Aziraphale reads and Crowley sleeps, tucked up in the overstuffed armchair he claims as his own. He tries not to think about that thermos and where it might be.

“I must be going mad,” he mutters one day, pecking at his computer. He’s never really gotten the hang of typing, even with the advent of typewriters, so he hunts and pecks with two fingers. 

Crowley grunts in agreement from where he’s spread himself in his chair, and it earns him a huff and an eye roll from Aziraphale. He has a stack of printer paper in his lap, writing careful lines with a borrowed fountain pen. Whenever Aziraphale tries to see, he glowers and tucks it up against his chest, stopping every few marks to stretch his gnarled hands. Eventually, he gives up after about ten minutes and rips the paper into several pieces, scattering them over the floor.

“Really, my dear,” Aziraphale says without looking up. Then he returns to his original thought. “They say you can find anything on the internet, but I daresay I find that statement to be absolutely false. Unless you want pornography. Lots of that. If that’s your thing.” He looks at Crowley out of the corner of his eye and catches a flash of forearm where he’s rucked up his sleeve, scratching. He wears a rather bemused look on his face. 

Aziraphale hammers at the back button. “I can’t find anything on _The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch_. All this knowledge, all of these resources, and still nothing.”

What had Gabriel said the last time they spoke on the London Bridge? The apocalypse could happen tomorrow or a couple of centuries. Soon. They’re going on 150 years since their conversation and the clock keeps ticking. “You’ve not heard _anything_ from downstairs?”

Crowley lets out a long exasperated sigh and swings his legs over the armrest, his head tipping back over the other side.

It’s rained for two weeks straight now, and it’s left them both restless. Crowley comes in and out of the shop, disappearing without so much of a touch to return in different clothes, a new haircut, a different harried expression on his face. There’s something on his mind, worrying at him, though God forbid he give Aziraphale any sort of clue as to what’s the matter. 

Aziraphale hands him a flyer he picked up at the newsstand as he went for his morning paper. “They’ve adapted Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_ at the Old Vic. It opens in three weeks’ time. What do you say?”

Crowley lets out a surprised sort of sound, frowning at the flyer. He taps the date for opening night and looks at Aziraphale in question. 

“Opening night sounds fabulous.”

The demon nods and tucks the flyer in his inside jacket pocket and then departs out into the rain. 

Aziraphale looks forward to the evening. There isn’t a true direct translation of _Metamorphoses_ , and humans always find interesting ways to adapt old stories. He’s curious how they’ll portray Philomela. Will she be the temptress or the victim?

The night of the show, he arrives at the Old Vic late by way of a cab. Crowley waits for him under the entrance, propped up against one of the marble columns in the perfect depiction of ennui. He’s changed his appearance again, let his hair grow out a bit so it falls in shaggy waves. He’s swapped his suit jacket out for a plain black t-shirt, fitted black jeans, and leather boots with the barest hint of a heel. He looks nondescript, young, his face slack, lost in thought, before he catches sight of Aziraphale. He cuts one long lean line in the shadows, and Aziraphale takes a moment to look with fondness.

While Crowley waits, a woman stops by and touches his arm. He straightens a bit and gives a strained smile as she tries to flirt with him. People do this from time to time with him, always struck by his aristocratic features, the sharp cheekbones and elegant brow. She only leaves when he backs up two paces, putting the column between them. 

Aziraphale approaches from behind and says his name. Crowley startles a bit before relaxing when he sees him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to surprise you. Shall we?”

Crowley spares him a quick, soft smile before schooling his face back into indifference. In moments like these, Aziraphale wants to hold out his arm and have Crowley take it, walk him down to their seats like two humans might do together. They wouldn’t be enemies. They’d be, at minimum, friends. At most--well--he tries not to dwell on impossible things.

He thinks about the woman out front, how she had stopped to touch his arm. It was innocent. Aziraphale knows that. He still fights to tamp down the ugly feeling that rises up his throat, burning like acid. 

Once inside, they settle in their seats. Their arms brush against each other where they share an armrest, and when the lights dim, Aziraphale lets his finger trace the back of Crowley’s hand, following the scars and feeling the constant slight tremor. His other hand clenches at his side, aching for more. Crowley takes off his sunglasses and leans his hand into the touch. 

The show begins. It’s a gruesome story, a battle between the gods, rape, deception, murder, lust. The hostilities between the two goddesses, Minerva and Arachne, have dire consequences on the people, and their own actions are echoed by the humans in Tereus and Philomela. It poses an interesting philosophical question for Aziraphale. Do his own choices have direct consequences on humans as a being of God? His constituents have free will, of course, but he wonders if his miracles create cascading effects instead of just affecting the individuals he meets, his own butterfly wings flapping against the wind.

He means to share his thoughts with Crowley and turns to him but finds the demon pale in the stage lights, fingers gripping the armrest with fervour. His face is damp, lip bitten and red. Onstage, Tereus wields his knife over Philomela, prying her mouth open, and a low and sorrowful sound escapes him, mirroring the actress. He looks at Aziraphale. His eyes are wild, irises dilated so not a speck of white remains. When Aziraphale moves to take his wrist, he jerks away, hard and sudden. He stands and dashes for the aisle, pushing past the other patrons and to the exit. 

Aziraphale searches the lobby for him. He stops in the bathrooms and then wanders the perimeter of the theatre. He checks every hallway leading to the balconies and ends up in a maintenance hall leading to backstage. He escapes out the back and into the alley behind the theatre, but Crowley is nowhere in sight.

He could go back in, he supposes, but the sight of Crowley near vibrating with grief lingers on his mind. The demon can escape in seconds when needed. The likelihood of finding him tonight is slim to none, but Aziraphale loses all interest in the production. 

Crowley gets like this sometimes. Aziraphale has so many questions for him, even simple things. _How was your day? Where did you go? What happened to you in the Garden? Are you mine? You’re mine._ The jealousy rears up inside of him, cloying and possessive, squeezing around his heart. He swallows it down and shakes his head. A walk will do him good, fresh air and the city lights, something to clear his mind.

It’s a good idea in theory until Aziraphale ducks into an alley to avoid a crowd of party-goers celebrating a bachelorette party. He supports friendship and love and certainly the consummation of marriage under God, but he would rather do without all the screaming and glitter and regretful drunken escapades. What is the point of a party when the guests spend the entire time trying to tempt the engaged persons into cheating? 

He looks to God--always silent--for fortification before sighing and turning down the alley. He gets lost in his thoughts until he hears a soft, startled noise, a sound of distress. Aziraphale stills and rounds the corner, keeping his footfalls light and quiet, stopping when he sees two figures pressed against the side of a building.

Oh, it’s just two men catching an intimate moment in the dark. He should turn to go, but his eyes stay transfixed on them. Their breaths are harsh, almost pained.

And then, oh no, he knows that man pushed up against the wall. He could recognize that silhouette anywhere. _Crowley_. 

He can’t contain the wounded sound that escapes from his throat, and the two men stop and look at him. Crowley has both hands flat against the brick, head tilted upwards toward the sky with a sheen on his face, damp. His partner has his shirt rucked up and tightens his hand in a fist around the fabric. “What are you looking at?” he asks, turning to Aziraphale.

Crowley looks at him, glasses askew. One serpent eye peers from over his frames. They catch each other for a long moment. Here it is. Here they are. Aziraphale has finally caught him in the middle of a temptation.

Crowley moves first, pushing the man off of him. He stalks toward Aziraphale, and the angel thinks perhaps he’s coming for a fight. He tenses as he approaches, but Crowley doesn’t even look at him, keeps his head down and bullies his way past and back onto the main street.

“What was that for, then? Hmm?” the man says, angry. He’s big, muscled like he could throw his weight around with ease. Aziraphale backs up. “He had a fine arse on him, and now he got away. I followed him across the Thames just to get at him. Maybe I should get you instead.”

Aziraphale recognizes the look on his face. It’s madness, possession. He’s seen it in his own reflection when he thinks about Crowley sometimes, the quiet moments in the dark when he’s curled asleep in his shop. The man backs him down the alley, hot breath on his face. The lust is gone, replaced with fury. Aziraphale should make his excuses, turn to go, but his own envy gets the better of him, and he snaps his fingers in sharp execution, satisfied when the man drops to the ground unconscious. 

He shakes all the way home. He can’t make sense of anything that’s happened tonight. He wants to drink. He wants to scream. He wants God to answer him, just once. 

He realizes later he never secured a promise from Crowley to meet with him again. No handshake, no appointment set. No _meet me at Trafalgar Square in one week’s time._ It’s just him now, alone in his bookshop, and Crowley -- who knows where -- alone with a thermos full of holy water. 


	9. Part II: iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is it! The Apocalypse! This chapter is quite a bit longer so just a heads up!

And then it begins--the end times--when Gabriel shows up one evening in Aziraphale’s bookshop while he’s alone at his desk with a little plastic takeout box with a sushi roll and a cup of green tea.

“We’re closed,” Aziraphale says at the sound of the door chime. He doesn’t look up as he turns the pages of _Tereus_ with care. It’s an old haunt, an old comfort. 

“What is that?” Gabriel asks, leaning over his shoulder.

Aziraphale stills for a moment, shoulders going tense before relaxing. It’s just his superior. He knows how to handle this. “It’s sushi. Raw fish.”

“Humans eat their fish _raw?_ ” 

“Not just fish. Their beef, their shellfish. Have you ever had frog legs? They’re so fresh they still twitch on the plate.”

Gabriel takes a step back and frowns in disgust. “And you eat all those things too?”

“Well, when one wishes to blend in with the humans, one must study their rituals and behaviours. I do believe that’s my job as a principality.”

There’s a pause, the sound of Gabriel smacking his lips as he wanders around the shop. He can only imagine the face he’s making. “Right, about that. I came to tell you to keep your eye out for two demons, Hastur and Ligur.”

Aziraphale pauses, chopsticks hovering over his takeout. “Oh? Whatever for?”

“They’re afoot on Earth. _It’s_ happening.”

“It?”

Gabriel groans and throws his head back. “Don’t be an idiot, Aziraphale. Armageddon! The apocalypse! You know, a big drooling hellhound and rain of fiery arrows from Heaven’s armies? It’s the end to end all ends.”

Aziraphale drops his sushi into his plastic ramekin of soy sauce in surprise, frowning as it bobs a bit and splashes over the rim. He takes a long moment to parse through what he’s heard before settling on, “The end to end all ends?” 

“Good isn’t? Sandalphon came up with that one.”

“Of course he did.” He fishes out his drowning sushi, lips puckering as it falls apart. He sets it aside, appetite lost. He shouldn’t be surprised, really, at the news of Armageddon. It came around just like clockwork, a couple of centuries after Gabriel’s initial warning. Still, he mourns at the thought, chest tight and hands clenched into fists.

Gabriel circles back around the desk, leaning with his arms over his chest. The weight of his body creases the corners of the _Tereus_ manuscript, and Aziraphale moves to tell him off before biting back his words. He folds his hands in his lap and pastes a pained smile on his face. “What are my orders? What should I be doing?” he asks instead.

“Nothing,” Gabriel says with a shrug. “Just be on the lookout.”

“And what are these demons planning on doing?” If he knows the plan, Aziraphale thinks, he can stop them. Good triumphs over evil; everybody lives. He’s read that story a million times over.

“Their job is to deliver the Antichrist to a little nunnery in Lower Tadfield and swap the baby with the son of the US Ambassador.”

“Oh! And I should stop them.”

“No.” Gabriel scrunches his face. “Why would you do that?”

“To stop... the... apocalypse?” Is that what God wants?

“What? Don’t be ridiculous. If we stop the apocalypse, we stop the war.”

“Yes. That is the idea,” Aziraphale says, confused.

“If we stop the war, we don’t win against Hell,” Gabriel says it as if it’s the most obvious fact. 

Aziraphale blinks, repeating Gabriel’s words in his head, certain he’s misheard. He doesn’t want a war. He doesn’t see the point of defeating Hell if it means absolute destruction of his legion, this little corner he’s eked out and named as his own. “Ah, I see,” he says, swallowing hard. He pushes his sushi away, overcome with nausea. “It’s the end to end all ends.” 

“Exactly. Now you get it.” Gabriel punches him in the arm and follows it up with a hearty backslap. He stands upright. “I thought I’d come down and give you a heads up. You gotta get into fighting shape. No more raw fish, and no more…” he gestures at Aziraphale’s cluttered desk with a frown, “reading.” Then he leans closer and inspects the title of the fragmented manuscript. “Didn’t this burn up?” 

“I managed to recover pieces of it,” Aziraphale responds, voice flat and eyes unblinking, still processing. 

Gabriel sneers and pokes his tongue between his teeth in thought. “Well, it’s garbage,” he says, picking it up and dumping it in the wastebasket. “There’s a war on. You need to be focused. And find that sword.” 

He turns to go, leaving Aziraphale frozen in his seat, hands clasped tight in his lap. Then he pauses at the door and turns back to look over his shoulder, back hunched. “Say, you haven’t seen a serpent around here, have you?”

Aziraphale lifts his eyebrows, heartbeat picking up. “A serpent? No?” It’s true. He hasn’t seen or heard from Crowley in several decades, though he can still sense him hovering in his periphery. 

“Well if you do, that one’s trouble. You can’t trust anything that one does.”

“I see.”

“And no more obsessing over your little humans’ mythology,” Gabriel adds again. He nods once and pushes out the door to the bookshop. 

Aziraphale lets out a long shaky breath and mutters a curse under his breath, biting his tongue. Damn Gabriel. Damn apocalypse. He’s known about the Great Plan since his first breath of creation, and yet he’s still unprepared. He fishes out the discarded manuscript and brings it to his chest, holding it for several minutes with his eyes squeezed shut. To go against his superior would be tantamount to blasphemy. He’d fall. 

“Fuck,” he mutters, then slaps a hand over his mouth. He lets out a pained sound. 

Despite Gabriel’s warnings, he wishes he could see Crowley. He doesn’t know what the demon would do, how they would be around each other after so many decades apart. He tries not to think about that night, the look of him against the building, body bowed taut. When it happens, he distracts himself with anything, food or theatre or terrible telly, but then something will remind him and the cycle starts all over again. He tries not to think about Crowley at all. 

The door chimes again. 

“We’re closed,” he says with a sharp bark. He tosses _Tereus_ on the desk and stands with a swift movement, ready to chase out the interloper.

He freezes at the shadow standing in the door. “ _Oh_ ,” he says, hands going limp at his sides. “Crowley.” 

He stands in the doorway, thin rectangle glasses framing his narrow face, hair shorn short. Even in the dark, he looks different, hunched and hungered. Aziraphale approaches him, stopping ten feet away as if the floor is made of quicksand, and he doesn’t have the strength to close the gap.

Crowley reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a crumpled newspaper. He tosses it, and Aziraphale catches it on instinct. 

“Well, come in then,” he says, moving back to the desk where he gets better light. It gives him something to do other than stare at the apparition in his doorway, afraid if he looks too hard, Crowley will disappear. He can’t parse his feelings, the hammering in his chest, the worry. _Are we okay?_ he wants to ask but feels the fool for it. They’ve gone much longer without interacting before, but it feels different this time. It ended differently. 

He unfolds the paper, smoothing over the creases. He reads the headline. “Tadfield convent hospital burns to ground.” He remembers Gabriel’s words, that it would start in a nunnery in Tadfield. “So, this is it. Armageddon.” 

Crowley inches into the bookshop, arms braced over his chest. He keeps his distance and gestures at Aziraphale to keep reading, motioning for him to turn the page. Aziraphale flips through several sections until finding the Classifieds where Crowley has circled an ad in a shaky, misshapen circle. 

> **IN SEARCH OF…**
> 
> Nanny, gardner, footman, cook, and maids for 
> 
> Dowling household to start ASAP.
> 
> Applicants will be vetted with background
> 
> check and interview.
> 
> See Indeed.com for application.

“Dowling. Why does that sound familiar? Oh! He’s the US Ambassador… Who has the Antichrist.” He stands up straight in alarm and stares at Crowley. “What do you plan to do? Apply?” 

Crowley lifts an eyebrow and shrugs, still maintaining his space. 

“Gabriel gave me direct orders not to interfere,” he says. And then, “Don’t roll your eyes!”

The demon gestures around the bookshop, looking back to make sure he has Aziraphale’s full attention. Then he makes wild gestures of bombs falling, puffling out his cheeks in a facsimile of explosions, waggling his fingers like fire. All of this, his little bookshop, St. James Park, his little corner of humanity gone. 

“Gabriel said to look out for two demons, Hastur and Ligur. Were they there at the convent?” Aziraphale asks.

Crowley shrugs and shakes his head, keeping his arms close to his chest.

Aziraphale lets out a frustrated huff. “What sort of demon are you? Don’t you know anything about the ongoings in Hell?” He turns back to the ad, pondering. They could infiltrate the ambassador’s home, he supposes, and influence the youngling away from his demonic ways. Or… “We could kill the Antichrist,” he says after a moment. 

Crowley lets out a guffaw, a surprised broken cough. He looks disappointed, disgusted, and shakes his head.

“Or not?” Aziraphale says. “I mean, do you want this place to turn into a battleground between Heaven and Hell? Neither of our sides is what I would call subtle. The whole place will go down in a burning ooze of lava. Everything!” 

The demon mimes cradling a baby with one arm, stabbing it with the other. Then he points at Aziraphale. _You?_

Could Aziraphale do it? Could he kill a babe? “Would you?” he asks. 

Crowley shakes his head. He’s always been overly fond of children. Right, back to the drawing board.

“So, you mean to infiltrate the ambassador’s household, and… influence the Antichrist not to destroy all of humanity? It’s madness,” he says, but then the whole thing is madness, the idea of the apocalypse, the Great Plan. He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a fortifying breath. “What would you even do?”

Crowley jabs at the ad. Gardner. It makes a sort of sense, though Aziraphale hates to admit it. Nobody would question a mute recluse working the grounds, and he’d always have an excuse to wear his sunglasses. What would Aziraphale do? He could apply as a cook. He does love food, but he’s never made a meal in his life. Crowley slides his fingers over to the first word in the listing. Nanny.

“Oh no. No, no, no. I can’t rear a child.” He receives a pointed look. “I don’t know the first thing about raising a child. I’ve never changed a nappy before.” 

And then Crowley, the bastard, miracles up a book on parenting, dropping it on the desk. 

“Ah,” Aziraphale says. “Point made.” 

So this is how they find themselves crouched over his old boxy desktop from 1995, trying to find the application online. “What’s an Indeed?” he asks. Crowley rolls his eyes, eyebrows lifting and head tilting in his dramatic fashion so that Aziraphale knows what he’s doing even with the glasses on. 

The tension between them is tight, a violin string pulled taut, plucked and wavering. They go through the motions of their old camaraderie, but the steps feel out of sync. They’re fumbling along to an old remembered dance, like a waltz tripping in quarter time, and at every turn Aziraphale feels he might fall over. 

He types out his resume, pulling keywords from the parenting book. Twenty years of experience. Expert in child development. Knowledge of sensory stimulation and self-regulation. 

He hands the keyboard over to Crowley, but he fatigues from typing after only a few moments, growing frustrated with his bent and twisted fingers. Aziraphale helps him by asking a series of yes and no questions. How long have you been gardening, 10 years? 20 years? Experience in leadership? Are you organic? Do you use pesticides? No. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. “Good choice on the pesticides,” he says. “Thaddeus Dowling doesn’t seem the type to believe in environmental preservation.”

Crowley grunts in agreement.

He wants to ask all sorts of things but bites his tongue. _Will you dine with me? Did you think of me? Would you have come back if it wasn’t the end of the world?_

In the cover letter, he writes for both of them. They’re cousins who’ve worked together on several estates. They come as a pair on account of Crowley’s inability to speak, but he’s very good at what he does. He miracles up a list of references for the both of them and prints out little business cards. If they’re going to do this, they’ll do it right, and if Crowley ensures their application is the only one to get through before the entirety of Indeed.com crashes, Aziraphale doesn’t say a thing.

They sit in their separate chairs, bodies apart. The inches feel like miles. Aziraphale thinks, _do you remember when I washed your feet? When I held your wrist? Do you remember walking through the church the night you saved my life?_

The interview goes off without a hitch. Aziraphale charms Ambassador Dowling’s PA, making sure to come off as inoffensive and British as possible. She’s impressed by Crowley’s portfolio of landscape designs, lush green hedges and beautiful roses in bloom. Crowley feigns pride very well, a flush staining his cheeks when she compliments him on the beauty of his gardens.

“When can you start?” she asks.

Aziraphale tries not to sound too eager. “Would two weeks’ time work for you? We have to arrange for our things to be moved over.” 

“Brilliant,” she says and shakes their hands.

Aziraphale moves into the manor, and they put Crowley up in a little garden house on the grounds. He looks out the window from his room at night after he’s put baby Warlock down, and waits until the lights go out and Crowley is asleep. 

Warlock surprises him when he first meets him and continues to surprise him every day. He devours books on child-rearing, checking milestone charts, jotting down when Warlock first lifts his head, rolls over, and smiles with a gummy grin. He is exactly average in every way, an almost cherubic little thing who enjoys chewing on blocks and cooing at his mobile, who takes way too long to wean from his bottle only because Aziraphale indulges him. 

Standing in the entry to Crowley’s little cottage, he says, “I think he’s broken. He’s too normal.” And then without waiting for a response, he continues, “Maybe that’s the point though, to be in disguise so no one knows he’s the son of Satan. Did you know, today he pulled himself up all by himself on the coffee table?” He says it with a sort of delight, as though he can’t contain himself. “He did immediately brain himself when fell, but…” 

Crowley nurses a finger of whiskey and lets him natter, and after a few months of this, Aziraphale coming to him to decompress and share his observations, things start to thaw between them. 

It’s a new normal. They drink their way through a couple of bottles of wine a week and sit together during mealtimes with the rest of the staff. Aziraphale makes up little stories about their childhood as cousins when others ask, and Crowley scoffs and snorts when he says something unbelievable or absurd. 

Crowley had a dog as a child named Beezlebub who loved to roll in the mud. The thing was always covered in flies. He once broke his arm falling from their uncle’s apple tree, caught red-handed while stealing, and he cried all the way to emergency. One time he found an abandoned baby bird and biked ten miles to the nature conservatory just to save the poor little thing.

He delights when Crowley smiles, though the demon tries to hide it, pursing his lips with a grunt of denial. 

When Warlock starts to walk and climb and get into everything, Crowley miracles up a little hedge labyrinth for him to play in. He grows big fat pumpkins in the fall, and Aziraphale helps them carve jack-o-lanterns, Warlock squealing when he sticks his hand in the pumpkin guts. They eat roasted seeds and sit on the steps, watching their creations flicker to life as the sun sets until Warlock grows heavy with sleep and has to be carried to bed.

Aziraphale sings him lullabies and tells him watered-down versions of his favourite myths. “Philomela was a beautiful princess,” he says. “And the gods favoured her. They came to her and transformed her into a beautiful nightingale so she could sing forever.” He doesn’t tell him the other bits, about Tereus betraying her, defiling her. He doesn’t tell him that female nightingales can’t actually sing.

“What’s a nightingale?” Warlock asks.

“Listen,” he says, pointing to the window. Warlock leans close to the window, the faint sound of birdsong coming through, little bursts of hiccups and chattering.

“Do you hear the chirruping every night?” The boy nods. “That’s a nightingale singing you to sleep.”

Warlock’s quiet for a moment. “Do you believe in God? Do you think He favours me?”

Aziraphale pangs a bit and scrunches the bedcovers tight around Warlock’s little body. “She knows if you’ve been good. She’s always listening.”

“Like Santa?”

He sighs. “Yes, like Santa.”

Warlock springs up like a weed and the rumours start flying around the house. He looks nothing like his short and stocky father and is already on track to be taller than their mother. He also lacks his father’s gruff constitution, a bit of a waif, all limbs and delicate like a dancer. The only thing about him that the household staff expects is how spoiled he is.

“What a brat!” he says to Crowley one evening. “He pushed the mayor’s daughter off the roof of his playhouse, and when I refused him dessert, he broke into my stash of sweets I keep in my quarters!”

Crowley laughs in his customary manner, sharp, raspy, and all teeth. He raises his eyebrows.

“This is absolutely not my fault. _I_ don’t spoil him. His parents are the ones who chuck toys at him as a substitute for affection.” He says this with disgust. Any child raised by the Dowlings would turn into the Antichrist, he thinks, from lack of love and any sort of structure. 

If he spoils Warlock, it’s justified. He doesn’t spoil him with gifts and objects and the latest toys. He spoils him with sunshine, romps around the gardens, constructing little imaginary stories about pirates and plunderers, queens and kings. He swings him over his shoulder and kisses him goodnight, and takes him to the children’s theatre every other weekend.

And despite Crowley’s lack of words, he knows the demon feels the same as he does. Crowley takes him for an hour or two every afternoon so Aziraphale can have a break, and from the windows of his quarters, he sees them hand-in-hand, traipsing through the hedge or digging up the dirt for earthworms. He catches them one time under the shade of a fruit tree in late autumn, stretched out in a pile of leaves fast asleep, and lets them be until it’s time for supper. 

It’s almost idyllic except for the looming threat of Armageddon and the sort of attention Crowley generates. The young maids titter every time he walks into the room, and Aziraphale turns a blind eye when one of the young footmen corners him just outside the cottage, leaning against the front door in a poor attempt at casual seduction. People like to touch him, and he never indicates one way or another how he feels about it, if he’s casting about temptations wherever he goes, taking bedfellows. Aziraphale wonders and desires often, shoving his hands deep into his pockets when they stand close together.

“What’s the deal with the groundskeeper then?” one of the cooks says, a woman just starting with the household. Jenna, Aziraphale thinks. He doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, passing from the laundry room through the back hall to the staff stairwell, but he stops to listen anyway. “He’s kinda cute in a caveman sort of way. All that grunting.”

“He’s mute,” says one of the maids. “But that’s all right though. I like ‘em quiet. He looks scrawny, but I bet he's strong. He came here with his cousin, the nanny.”

Jenna snorts. “Sure, his cousin. I’m surprised the Dowlings would go for a manny. A hundred pounds say they’re fucking in that little cottage.”

The household staff come and go through the years, and if some leave due to divine intervention, Aziraphale looks the other way.

And like Crowley before him, Warlock becomes another thing he collects, folding him into his legion. He protects the smell of fresh laundry, lavender and sun-kissed cotton from hanging outside to dry, the scent of newly laid sod and cut grass, laughter as Crowley chases Warlock through the gardens. He collects the sound of soft snores after the Watershed, the constant _pew pew_ effects from video games, and the little innocuous questions Warlock asks, springing forth unrestrained whenever they come to mind. 

"How come Master Crowley can't talk?"

"He was injured when we were young."

"How?"

Unlike the little stories he makes up about his and Crowley's pretend childhood, Aziraphale can't find himself to lie about this. "I'm not sure," he says after a moment. "He's been like that since the day I first met him."

"Have you ever asked your mom about it?"

Aziraphale looks upward at the sky, ever silent. "My mother and I don't speak."

"Ah," Warlock says, nodding as if very wise. "It's the same for me."

Aziraphale hopes their plan is working. Warlock seems so normal, or as normal as a well-off, neglected child can be. He's loved, he makes sure of that, even if that love doesn't come from his parents.

That evening he goes to the cottage and knocks on the door. He sees the lights on and hopes it's not too late. The door swings open, Crowley on the other side looking a bit flustered. Behind him, the young footman, Connor, sits sprawled out on the couch. 

"Oh, I'm sorry," Aziraphale stutters, backing up with speed. "I didn't mean to, uh, interrupt anything."

Crowley reaches for his arm, the first real touch they've shared in decades, jerking him forward into the cottage. Then he motions at Connor with a shooing motion, jabbing a finger at the door. 

"What?" Connor says, affronted. "You're kicking me out?"

Crowley makes another more insistent gesture for him to hurry up, and the young man scowls at them both as he pushes past. 

"Stop being such a prude," he says, slamming the door on his way out. 

Crowley's fingers dig into Aziraphale's wrist where he still grips him, lips pressed into a thin line. 

"I really didn't mean to intrude," Aziraphale says. 

Crowley releases him and casts him a very pained but unreadable look. Then he pushes him towards the small sofa and goes for the whisky. 

"I'll get straight to the point," Aziraphale says, unwilling to examine closer just what Connor was doing in the cottage. He sits down. "I'm worried about Warlock's parents."

Crowley tilts both palms upward and scrunches his face in confusion.

"I mean, I'm not worried for them. I'm worried they're the problem. And don't give me that look like you know that's obvious. I don't know what to do!" What if their neglect is what sets Warlock over the edge? He's eight and a half now. Two and a half years is not nearly enough time to undo a life of missed birthdays and dinners, being fostered off on any available relatives for the holidays. "He seems like a normal kid, a spoiled brat, but sensitive and astute too. He knows he's unwanted." 

Crowley pours the whisky with a heavy hand and clinks their glasses together. He has a look about him, one of sympathy. He supposes Crowley can relate a bit to Warlock, one of God’s angels cast out. Aziraphale feels it too, maybe not to the same extent, but he wishes for just one word from Her. 

Aziraphale throws back his drink, but Crowley takes his time nursing his. After a long moment of silence, the angel looks at him. “I can call back Connor, if you’d like.”

Crowley huffs a sharp breath through his nose and presses his lips into a thin line. He shakes his head. No. And then he scoots a little closer, propping his endless legs up on the coffee table. Their shoulders touch. Crowley has the fire stoked high and heat radiates through the room, making them drowsy. When Aziraphale makes to stand, Crowley stills him with a hand on his forearm. 

“For a little bit,” Aziraphale says and Crowley nods.

For the first time in a long time, Aziraphale feels like they’ve gotten back a piece of their old camaraderie, their easiness. He thinks of Venice, Crowley dancing the street while lording about that blasted painting, and realizes he misses this. He wants to preserve this forever. Crowley can have his lovers. He’ll allow it if it means keeping this until the end of time.

He makes more of an effort with Warlock, spends the weekends in the manor and encourages Harriet Dowling to enrol him in a public school instead of receiving tutors. He needs socialization, friends, a sense of normality. He thrives in it too. Aziraphale greets him at the front gate in the afternoons, and Warlock natters at him about his classes and science project and his new friend Rory, unable to contain his grin. 

Later, Aziraphale sneaks him into the kitchen for a second helping of dessert, and they’re surprised to find Crowley there, leaning against the counter with a cup of espresso. 

“A bit late for that, isn’t?” he says, and then follows Crowley’s gaze out the window. The kitchen looks out on the little cottage, and they can see the figure of a man stalking around it, peering through the windows into Crowley’s home. 

“Isn’t that Mr Connor?” Warlock asks. He hoists himself up to sit on the counters and Crowley nudges him to get down, refusing to meet Aziraphale’s questioning look.

“That is Mr Connor,” Aziraphale confirms. 

“What’s he doing at your house, Mr Crowley?” 

Crowley sighs and turns to watch in silence until Connor gives up and wanders back to the manor. He sets his cup down and rubs Warlock’s head. He nods at Aziraphale once and then ducks out the service exit from the kitchen, looking over his shoulder once or twice until he reaches his house. 

Warlock digs into his ice cream, still perched on the counter with his feet swinging. “Why are people weird about Mr Crowley?” he asks, startling Aziraphale from thought. 

“Whatever do you mean, my dear?”

“It’s just that the maids talk about him _a lot_. They don’t think I hear them, but they’re always giggling. Mr Connor follows him around on the grounds too. The butler always yells at him for never washing up, but it’s because he’s bothering Mr Crowley all the time.”

Aziraphale turns to look at him and puts both hands on his shoulders. He looks him in the eyes, warm and proud, and if his hands shake a bit, Warlock doesn’t let on that he knows. “You’re quite observant, aren’t you? More observant than me.” The boy smiles.

By Monday, rumours fly through the staff about Connor’s sudden termination of employment. Crowley doesn’t lift an eyebrow amongst all the chatter, so Aziraphale says nothing in return. He doesn’t know how to tell him he’s sorry, that he’s supposed to do better. It’s just one thing amongst a long run of failures as a principality. Crowley’s happiness weighs in one hand, the end of the world in the other. They’re one and the same, really. 

The day before Warlock’s eleventh birthday, Crowley comes to him in his rooms, and they sit in silence looking down on the grounds as the staff set up large white tents for tomorrow’s celebration. Warlock had wanted a superhero theme, and he wanted his friends from school. Harriet Dowling had wanted a social event with all the lords and ladies, politicians and lobbyists. Aziraphale compromised and ordered two tents, one for the children and one for the socialites. He ordered a three-tiered cake in the shape of Captain America’s shield and twenty large bouquets of balloons with the likes of Iron Man and Black Widow. He bought superhero masks for party favours and set up a Nerf gun shooting range. If it’s the end of the world, he wants it to be good. He wants Warlock’s last day as a boy to be spectacular.

“Did we do good?” he asks.

Crowley doesn’t look up from the window, frowning as someone hammers a stake down in his manicured lawn. He squeezes Aziraphale’s upper arm once and hums, a low rough rumble. 

When Aziraphale imagined the end to end all ends, he pictured hellfire raining down from the sky, the Seraphim with their gold bows and arrows, the bellows of hounds, and the earth cracking open and swallowing up all of God’s creations. God had been silent on the matter, as usual, and so Aziraphale was left to his own imagination. 

What he doesn’t expect is a rather idyllic, perfect birthday party. He does have to shout when Warlock starts shooting people in the head with his Nerf gun, but it seems hardly Armageddon worthy. When no hellhound comes barreling into the festivities at 7:06 PM, he starts to panic, just a bit.

Crowley slinks by from his observation post in the hedge and gestures with a tilt of his head to meet him by the staff entrance. Aziraphale mimes back. _I can’t. I’m stuck with the children!_

The demon rolls his eyes from where he stands by the cake, looks around, and then kicks the leg of the folding buffet table out, causing the entire buffet to tumble, cake and all. They make a dash for it, distraction accomplished, and Aziraphale spares a grimace when he hears Warlock shout behind them, “Food fight!”

“That cake cost five hundred pounds,” he says once they’re alone. He peeks around the corner of the manor and sees Warlock, covered head to toe in frosting, grinning like a maniac. “Okay, so maybe it was worth it. Just a little.”

Crowley whips his glasses off and throws his hands on his hips. He juts his chin out, eyes wide, and waves his hand between them. 

“Right, sorry,” Aziraphale says. “So, no dog.” 

A grunt. 

“Wrong boy.” 

Crowley grimaces, face stretched tight. He throws his head back and lets out a pained, long groan, hands in his hair.

Aziraphale hands shake and he clasps them in front of himself to make them stop. “Okay, let’s think. We know the demons Hastur and Ligur went to Tadfield and delivered the Antichrist. There were two babies, the Dowling child and the Son of Satan. Yes? Good. So. We just go to the nunnery and find out what happened to the other baby.”

It sounds simple enough, but it unleashes a hellish whirlwind of events. They run into Sister Mary Loquacious (“What do you mean there were three babies?!”), hit a witch on her bicycle (and if Aziraphale not-so accidentally steals her copy of _The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch_ , who could Crowley tell?), and find themselves screaming (Aziraphale) on fire in the Bentley barreling down the M25. 

They’re in this together, whatever that might mean, though Aziraphale hopes it doesn’t end with him being lit on fire.

When they reach the airfield base, he’s surprised once again to discover the real Antichrist, Adam, is still just a boy. He’s shorter and broader than Warlock and stands facing off against the Four Horseman with his friends. Aziraphale can feel the love pouring off of him, sweet like holding Warlock as a baby, the vision of Crowley standing in San Marco Basilica awash in light, the echo of the choir’s voices exalted, like seeing _Tereus_ performed in Athens in the hot sun, crammed against the other revellers there to celebrate Dionysus. _Hello there_ , he thinks, looking at Adam. _I know you. I’ve known you._ It’s easy to fold him into his legion at that moment without a second thought. 

His friends rally behind him across from the Four Horseman, tenacious and so very human.

Death floats above the ground, his garments in tatters. He turns his head in a slow creaking movement, separate from his body, and stares where he and Crowley stand, seeing them for the first time. His gaze draws the attention of the others, and they all turn to look at the interlopers. He shudders as if frightened by what he sees. Crowley straightens beside him. 

Death looks back at Adam, fervent. He points at the angel and demon. “Your very existence demands the ending of the world. You can make this world anew,” he says. His voice crackles in the air like a vacuum sucking out all other sounds when he speaks. 

Crowley reaches for Aziraphale’s hand and squeezes, just once, and Aziraphale understands his purpose for the first time since he was plucked from the stars. He shouts across the tarmac. “Don’t listen to him, my boy. You didn’t ask for this to begin.”

“Ignore this nonsense,” Death bellows. “I can end them with one word.”

Adam looks at Aziraphale and Crowley, eyes narrowed, and it feels like looking into the sun, encompassing and flaying. He’s not a boy, not really. He just wears the shape of one, the voice of one. “I don’t even know who you are.”

War circles around Death, her hair aflame. If Crowley is the red light pooling in the sky at sunset, she is blood spilling from fresh wounds. “They are meaningless,” she says. “Your friends are meaningless. Kill them.”

“And you,” Adam says, unafraid, “You’re not even real. You’re just nightmares.”

“I am War,” she says, sneering. She raises the sword above her head. “And little boys like you are meant to die for me, in me. _End them_.”

One of Adam’s friend, a spry girl in wellies, steps forward and jams her foot into War’s shin. “Well, I’m not a little boy!” she says. She snatches up the sword when War drops it in shock and rams it just under her ribcage. 

_Oh_ , look at them, Aziraphale thinks. He moves to intervene. They shouldn’t have to carry this burden. They’re just children. These are his legion, meant for him to protect. That is his sword. But Crowley grips his hand tighter and stills his hand, shaking his head. “Please,” he says.

Crowley holds tight to his hand, staying him, and Aziraphale knows he’s right. The choice for humanity must come from them. They’re not just any humans. They’re the future. They’ll grow up and shape the rest of this Earth, and for good or ill, it’ll be their choice and theirs alone. 

One by one, they defeat the Four Horseman, and Aziraphale can feel their power wink out as Adam grows stronger in his resolve. Only Death remains in the dust of the others, the crown, sword, and scales resting in a circle at his feet. “So it is done,” he says. He looks at Adam who squares off against him, shoulders pulled back and feet apart. “You cannot destroy me. Destroying me would destroy the world.” 

And then he turns his head, body unnaturally still, and looks at the angel and demon. “And you who walks between light and dark, know that you possess more power than what you thought you lost. Good day.” He winks out, leaving a glimmer of stardust which fades away, like blinking lights after staring at the sun for too long.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asks. Whatever did Death mean? 

Crowley shuts his eyes and clenches his fists at his sides. He swallows and cants his head, shaking it. There’s a look about him, aching and scared, the lines of his face deeper than Aziraphale has ever seen them. When he opens his eyes again, the yellow gleam pierces, keen and alert. He sets his jaw and straightens shoulder, and his weariness fades into resolve. Whatever Death meant, Crowley understood. 

Aziraphale plays the words back from memory. _And you who walks between light and dark, know that you possess more power than what you thought you lost_. Had he meant Adam, a human living between Heaven and Hell? But no, Death had spoken to Crowley. He spoke of lost power. Who was Crowley before he Fell?

Just when Aziraphale means to press further, a crack of lightning strikes the ground, spraying asphalt and dust. As the air clears, the silhouette of Gabriel reveals itself. Beside him, the earth begins to rumble and a dark shadow emerges from the earth and short menacing demon appears, covered in filth and flies.

In unison, they stalk over to Adam, Crowley and Aziraphale going unnoticed off to the side. Gabriel looms, hunching over as if speaking to a small child, oozing contempt and mockery. Aziraphale bristles but hold fast. He knows now what the child is capable of, knows where his loyalties lie. Adam’s friends bunch up beside him in a tight little phalanx, chins up, and eyes glowering.

“Hello,” Gabriel says, sneering. “You’re the boy, the Antichrist.”

“I’m Adam Young.”

Beezlebub stares at him, eyes blank, the little flies buzzing around their head. “You are the Great Adverszary. It isz written. You must sztart the war to end all warsz to decide who conquersz.”

“I don’t want to start a war.”

“It’s decided,” Gabriel huffs. He taps his foot a bit, impatient. “Just get it over with. It’s the Great Plan. God decrees it.”

Crowley’s eyes narrow, lips turning downward. He looks between Gabriel and Adam for a moment before releasing Aziraphale’s hand, slithering around until he’s standing behind the children, legs braced and hands fisted at his sides. 

“Crowley, wait--” Aziraphale says, watching him go. Gabriel had warned him to look out for the Serpent. If he sees him now, surely Crowley will be destroyed.

“You!” Gabriel says, snarling. He jabs a finger at the demon. When Crowley takes a step forward, positioning himself over Adam, Gabriel takes a step back.

“Who isz this?” Beezlebub asks. 

“The Serpent. The traitor,” he says with disgust. He turns back to Adam. “Start the war, kid.”

Crowley lays a hand on Adam’s shoulder, squeezing it. He snarls and shakes his head, his forked tongue hissing. 

Gabriel looks frazzled. He inhales a sharp breath and stomps a foot. “It’s not for you to decide anymore, Serpent. It is God’s plan!” He’s shouting now, spittle flying from his mouth, his face blotched with anger.

Aziraphale shifts and rocks on his feet, glancing furtively from the corners of his eyes. How would Gabriel know when no one has heard from Her for millennia? He’d said She went quiet the day the demons rebelled and Fell. 

“Ah, but is it God’s plan?” He makes himself known as he rushes to join Crowley behind the young boy. “I mean, _nobody_ knows God’s plan. We’ve not heard from Her since she first began creating Eden. I’ve _never_ heard Her.”

“Aziraphale, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gabriel says. “You’re just a young, dumb principality.”

Crowley snarls again at that and moves to step in between Gabriel and Aziraphale. 

“Yes, I am a principality,” Aziraphale continues. “This is my legion. This boy. This earth.” The idea in his mind begins to coalesce. He knows he’s right about the Great Plan. “I was made to protect this place. Surely, if the Antichrist says no war, then God meant for there to be no war.”

Gabriel sputters at this, and Crowley leans in so his face hovers mere inches from his. His lips spread into a sneer, hissing. Gabriel leans back and swallows. 

“Nobody’s heard from God,” he says, voice low. He stares at Crowley. “I wonder why that is, hmm?”

Crowley cocks his head in return and lowers his glasses, revealing the yellow of his eyes, the deep black slits. His sneer spreads into a grin, and he shows his forked tongue. Gabriel’s face twists in anger and disgust.

“Fine,” he says to Crowley. Not to Adam. Not to Aziraphale. “You win this time, traitor. I bet you feel so good getting to ruin another angel.”

Crowley’s face falls at that, eyes widening. He steps back. 

Gabriel turns around. “Come,” he says to Beelzebub. With a snap of his fingers and the crack of lightning, they both disappear from whence they came.

Crowley stands there, eyes wide with hurt. He swallows once and lowers his head, breathing hard. 

“What did he mean?” Aziraphale asks. Crowley is slow to turn, his expression open and raw. He looks at the angel, saddened by what he sees. He shakes his head, a small minute movement, before reaching for him. Aziraphale meets him with his hand, and they clasp their palms together. “What just happened?”

Beside them, Adam wavers on his feet, and his friends are there to catch him as he stumbles. “I’m tired,” he says, voice sluggish. “Let’s go home.”


	10. Part II: iv

Aziraphale blinks awake in his bookshop, sitting propped up in his tartan the chair, the one Crowley had claimed as his own. He shakes his head, disoriented. How did he get here? Wasn’t he just at the airbase? The shop is cold. The lights are off, and he sits in the darkness for a long moment. He must have slept for hours, he thinks, if it’s nighttime and the streets are quiet. 

His heart beats loud in the silence of the room. He sits and listens for a long moment, fingers curled against the upholstery. Alone. Where did Crowley go, the boy?

Then he looks down, and on his lap is a sheaf of papers, a mix of different textiles from papyrus to computer paper. The words are handwritten in a jagged, slow hand, that of a child almost, shaky and crooked. _P H I L O M E L A_ it reads. 

“Hello, Aziraphale,” a voice says. 

Aziraphale jerks and looks up. Leaned against the desk, he can make out the outline of Gabriel in the dark, the clean lines of his suit and clean-cropped hair. His heart pounds.

“You’re in so much trouble. But I’ve come to make a deal with you.” He sounds friendly and menacing all at once. His voice lilts in that musical way of the Seraphim, hypnotizing. He shakes his head as if speaking to a small disappointing child. “I tried to protect you. I warned you not to listen to the Serpent, but you didn’t listen, did you? You think you are so clever, but you are just young and dumb.”

“I’ve been on this earth now for 6,000 years,” Aziraphale says. He swallows and straightens up in his chair, moving the sheaf of papers to the side table. “And I’ve known the demon Crowley for just as long.”

A low bitter laugh escapes from Gabriel, soft at first but increasing in volume and madness. “Is that what you call him? The demon Crowley? You are so… fucking… stupid!” He pushes off the desk and stalks forward. “You don’t know anything,” he says, gripping Aziraphale by the lapels of his greatcoat. He jerks him forward until he’s standing, their faces inches apart. “You don’t know what you’ve done. You’re as good as Fallen.” 

Gabriel’s eyes catch on the side table where Aziraphale has discarded the papers. He drops Aziraphale back into his chair and reaches for them. “Philomela,” he reads. He looks sad for a moment, eyes glittering in the dark, caught by the light of the streetlamps. “The Serpent’s doing, I see, getting you obsessed with this little story.”

“It’s just a myth,” Aziraphale says. He keeps his hands in his lap, but he wants to reach for the pages. Wherever it came from, perhaps Adam, it’s his now. “They’re just stories humans tell, and I collect them. That’s all. No harm done.”

“I’ve been trying to protect you all this time, Aziraphale.” He says it with an ache in his voice, pity. “Why do you think I was in Greece? Who set fire to Sophocles’ play? To the Library of Alexandria?”

Aziraphale’s eyes widen and his breath hitches. Every time, Crowley had been there but so had Gabriel. “You?” he sputters. “But why would you do that? So much history, so much invention. Love!”

“Why do you think the Serpent was always there, pushing you towards your little obsession?” 

Aziraphale remembers Crowley coming to him in the Library, making his little deliveries of manuscripts, distracting him with the shape of his lean legs in the sunlight through the windows, the shine of his ornate golden collar. He remembers the manuscript of _Procne and Philomela_ , the one that burned up in flames when Caesar came through. Had Crowley brought that to him? 

He remembers being so distracted scribing all the documents that he ignored the entire conflict between Ptolemy and Caesar until it was too late. Even now, he can feel the warmth from Crowley as he sat beside him in the quiet, reading over his shoulder as he scribed page after page. It’d been nice, he remembers thinking, having a companion to talk with after so many decades of travelling alone.

“I see you remember,” Gabriel says as he stares at the shifting expressions on Aziraphale’s face. Remembrance. Dawning realization. “Let me tell you a little story about the Seraphim Philomael.”

He crouches down in front of the chair, catching Aziraphale’s gaze. When he speaks, his voice is low but fervent. “You’ve asked me before why God never speaks to us. You’re so young, and I ache that you’ve never been able to hear Her voice. The Seraphim remember when she used to sing to us, and we would sing to her in return.” 

He closes his eyes, longing, head canted as if remembering the holy choirs. “You were made from the stars, but the Seraphim were made from God Herself. I was made from Her light, a shining beacon to the other angels. Uriel, the archer, was born from Her strength and commands Her armies. Philomael possessed Her voice, and when he betrayed us, he took it with him.

“You see, before Lucifer fell and ruled over Hell, there was another traitor. When the Heavenly choirs sang, Philomael had the most beautiful voice, the voice of our mother, and he used it to drive the others to madness. He instilled temptation in us, lured the other angels to him and away from God. He created covetousness and envy, lust. He invented the first sin and used it to drive the angels apart.

“Some of us resisted temptation. We knew he had to be punished. So we captured Philomael and slit his tongue, sliced his vocal folds, and broke his hands so he could not distort God’s voice any longer. He was turned into a Serpent and cast out of Heaven.”

Aziraphale gasps. “Crowley.” 

Gabriel reaches for him and squeezes his shoulder. “It’s not your fault. This is what he does. He drives angels to temptation. He corrupted the very word of our mother. I understand, Aziraphale. I do. He drove the best and strongest of the Seraphim to madness, and he had so long to sway you.

“After he Fell, some of the angels revolted against our harsh decision. Lucifer, born from Her judgment, started a war in Philomael’s name. He and his followers were cast out as well, and they Fell below and formed Hell.”

Aziraphale shakes and squeezes his eyes shut. He remembers walking through the Garden, startled and afraid when he first saw Crowley. His mouth had gushed with blood, his hands were marred and maimed. Had he seduced him from the very beginning? Made him pity him? Aziraphale had _healed_ him, the very traitor to all of Heaven and God Herself. His stomach clenches. His breaths heave. “Oh, forgive me,” he says, voice breaking. 

Gabriel cups his face with both hands. “I tried to protect you. I did. I’m so sorry I failed you.” Gone is his anger, replaced with only mourning and sadness. “I want to help you now. Turn your back on him and come home where you’ll be safe. Let the Great Plan happen.”

“Yes,” he says, nodding. His heart aches, spasming in grief. “My things, this place…” He looks around at the bookshop, his little collection of his legion that he protects and savours. 

“Of course,” Gabriel says, kind. “Take your time. I’ll come back for you tonight.” 

He presses their foreheads together in comfort, and Aziraphale can feel it, God’s light. Oh, how he’s been away from it for so long stuck here on Earth. Gabriel releases him then and stands up. “I’ll take you home. You’ll be safe,” he says. Then he looks upwards, reaching with a hand, before pulling towards the ceiling and out of the bookshop.

Aziraphale sits alone in his chair until sunrise, lost and betrayed. What a fool he’d been. Crowley wasn’t even truly a demon, just a monster forced to walk the earth. He caused the first war; his temptations led the other angels to Fall. And here Aziraphale, who had thought himself so holy, had succumbed to the same trap. Shame fills him. Regret. He’d allowed himself to be tempted by earthly pleasures, and in doing so turned his back on God. 

At mid-morning, the door to the bookshop door jingles despite the door being locked and the sign out front flipped to CLOSED. Aziraphale sequesters himself in the back and leans against a bookshelf, heart hammering in his chest. There’s only one person it could be. If he’s quiet, perhaps he’ll leave.

He hears the sounds of Crowley shuffling through the bookshop, the soft click of him removing and folding his sunglasses before stuffing them in his jacket pocket. Aziraphale can imagine it to perfection having seen him wander through his stacks of books, his home, so many times before. _Go away_.

But no, he can feel that dark shadow lingering in the back of his mind, thrumming whenever Crowley gets close. It’s a siren call. _I wanted you. You made want you._

Crowley lets out a soft questioning sound, an inquisitive hiss as he moves around the desk. Then hears a more startled sound and the shuffling of papers. He comes around the corner holding the handwritten Philomela manuscript Adam had left as a gift and finds Aziraphale pressed against the bookcase.

“Leave,” Aziraphale says, stepping back. There’s no room for him to put distance between them, and the backs of his heels kick up against the shelf. His voice cracks when he speaks.

Crowley looks at him, eyes wide with concern. He reaches up with care to touch his fingers to Aziraphale’s shoulder, palm flattening against the lapels. Unblinking, he studies him and Aziraphale has to shut his eyes against the headiness of that gaze.

He pushes him away. “I know what you are,” he says, eyes still closed, breath quickening. “You can’t--I won’t--I won’t let you trick me anymore. Gabriel told me what you did.”

He hears the sound of papers hitting the floor. A sharp, brittle sound escapes Crowley’s throat. His fists curl around Aziraphale’s jacket, shaking him as if to say, _look at me._

Aziraphale opens his eyes, jaw clenched and face hot. He can feel the well of emotion bubbling up inside him, uncontained, eyes hot. He’d longed for this once, to be this close to Crowley. Now that he has it and sees him for what he truly is, it makes his throat burn and his stomach turn. “How could you?” he asks. “You had Her voice and used it to betray everyone? I trusted you. I _loved_ you. I--”

Crowley shoves him hard into the bookcase and lets go. His face goes slack, lips parted, eyes wide. Not a breath of air is shared between them. 

His words catch in his throat. He hadn’t meant to say that, not out loud. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, steeling his voice. He straightens his jacket and lifts his chin, grasping for any sort of order. “I’m leaving this place, returning to Heaven. The Great Plan will happen. It’s God’s will.”

The demon--no, not a demon, not Crowley--lets out a groan and snarls, his teeth gnashing. He looks at Aziraphale once more, pleading, pressing his palms together in supplication. When Aziraphale only shakes his head and shuts his eyes to look away again, he slams a fist into the wall and kicks the manuscript he dropped to the floor, scattering the pages. He lets out a low, ugly sob before biting his fist. Then he turns and stalks out of the bookshop. The door slams behind him.

Aziraphale shudders. He looks up to Heaven knowing he won’t get an answer. It’d been harder than he thought it would be to see Crowley. He was good at manipulating his emotions. He’d almost believed the tenderness of his touch. He thinks about Venice, the look of glee on his face as he poured the turpentine over da Vinci’s painting. Aziraphale had thought Crowley did it for him, but he’d done it for himself, hadn’t he? He’d done it to spite Gabriel. 

He thinks about Crowley asleep under the fruit tree, Warlock Dowling, all of age five, tucked against his shoulder in a pile of leaves. What had it all been for? Crowley had known Aziraphale’s weaknesses, had found his soft underbelly and struck true. It’d taken a smile, a touch, the gleam in his eyes, and he tricked Aziraphale into believing there was goodness within him. 

He steadies his breath and grabs a satchel and starts shoving his most prized possessions in a bag, spurred into action. There’s little he wants to take with him, everything tainted, so many memories wrapped up in Crowley--Philomael-- _that monster_. He grabs his bibles, hovers over the books of prophecy for a moment, but what does it matter now? The world--his world--is ending.

He stops when his hand reaches for _Tereus_. This was the blasted thing that started his whole obsession. He remembers the way the olives burst on his tongue, bright and salty, like it was yesterday. He remembers Crowley wrapped in his fine dark chiton and himation, laughing between sips of wine. They’d sat under a tree in Pericles’ backyard, propped against the stone of a marble statue. He should burn the play, burn the poems and the Shakespeare, the numerous retellings that chased him through history, his own Alexandria ablaze.

The temptation lingers, though, to take it with him, an old beckoning. _I named you. You deceived me_ , he thinks, and then, _I won’t forget it._ He takes his copies--of the play, the Keats poem, a translation of _Metamorphoses_ \--and tucks them in his satchel. Then he stops and lingers over the manuscript scattered across the floor. 

Amid Gabriel’s arrival last night, he’d forgotten all about it. It’s curious, the mix of papyrus, parchment, and paper scattered across the rug, written in ink and pen. Some of the pages are significantly older, and each line has been written in a slow unpracticed hand one line at a time.

He knows this handwriting. He recognizes the slant, the crooked shaking lines. It must have taken Crowley centuries, millennia, to write it, and Adam, of all people, had miracled it to him.

Aziraphale kneels on the floor to organize the papers and goes by the feel of the paper and the faded lines. He remembers Crowley writing a crude hieroglyphic, brows furrowed in concentration, fingers slipping on the brush, his forked tongue peeking between his lips.

He looks out the window. The sun is at high noon on a rather sunny and bright day for London. It’ll be hours yet before Gabriel returns. _One last thing_ , he thinks. _One last temptation_. 

He begins to read. 


	11. Part II: v

> PHILOMELA
> 
> ~~This story begins~~
> 
> ~~My story begins in Ath~~
> 
> ~~This story starts on Mount Ol~~
> 
> This is a story about violation.
> 
> On Mount Olympus there were two gods, Zeus--he who controlled lightning and the sky--and Hera--the goddess of women and marriage. Hera was queen of the gods and wife to Zeus, though she had no choice but to wed him. Zeus, you see, was conniving and clever, and he tricked her into falling for him and raped her. Out of shame she wed him and bore several children, including my great-grandfather Hephaestus. 
> 
> My father, Pandion, the King of Athens, spoke fondly of Hephaestus. He was the god of smithing and blessed Athens with the finest weapons. He was cast off of Mount Olympus when he sparred against Zeus, for Zeus had raised his hand to Hera and meant to strike her. 
> 
> ~~I wish he had~~
> 
> ~~He should have~~ ~~my sister was~~ ~~I~~ ~~was~~
> 
> My father had my eldest sister Procne and wed her to the great King Tereus of Thrace, son of Ares, the god of war. Like his father, Tereus was powerful, menacing, but he loved Procne and would have done anything for her. 
> 
> And so he did. You see, Procne and I were close. We were the only children in a small, close-knit family. When she sailed across the sea to live with her new husband, I ached for her and wrote to her as often as I could. Her letters could not fill the longing in my heart. I missed my sister so dearly. 
> 
> “Go to her,” Procne begged Tereus, ~~and because he loved her~~ and so he did, sailing to Athens with a small crew to fetch me and bring me back to Thrace.
> 
> Pandion, my father, adored Tereus for they were both descendants of gods and kings. He assumed Tereus shared the same integrity he possessed. But my father was born from Hephaestus who had defended his mother from the strike of her husband, whereas Tereus hailed from Ares, plunderer and pillager of villages, god of destruction and war. It was this mistake that cost me my freedom.
> 
> “Protect her as though she were your own,” my father said to Tereus, and Tereus agreed. And so my fate was sealed.
> 
> Traveling back to Thrace, I found myself alone with him often. My sister, his queen, spoke highly of him, and so I trusted him at first. ~~This was my mista--~~
> 
> “You have the most beautiful voice. Will you sing for me?” he asked.
> 
> I had not sung for anyone since being separated from Procne, and so I said, “No, not yet.”
> 
> “Your hands are so deft. Will you weave for me?” 
> 
> But I had not weaved since my sister had departed, and so I said, “No, not yet.”
> 
> “You are so beautiful, your grace unparalleled. Will you lie with me?”
> 
> And I was stunned, for he had vowed himself to my sister, and so I said, “No, not ever.”
> 
> ~~I should have~~ ~~I was wrong~~ ~~had I said yes I~~
> 
> To which he said, “You are mine, given to me by your father. I shall have you.”
> 
> And so he did.
> 
> I wept for so long after, and he grew tired of my weeping. “I will tell my sister and my father of your deeds,” I threatened, and so he cut out my tongue, bruised my throat. I could no longer sing. I wailed. 
> 
> Upon arriving in Thrace, Tereus wove a fantastical tale of my deception, how I seduced him and betrayed my sister’s love, how he had written to our father, Pandion, and in shame, my own king ordered my mutilation as punishment. 
> 
> My sister turned on me, and I was cast out to live in the cellar beneath the throne. 
> 
> As a child I had been gifted in weaving and braiding, and the guards pitied me and gave me silk and wool. From the cellar window, I leaned towards the open night sky and listened to the nightingales sing. The moon waxed and waned as I wove my tapestry, and I became used to the croak of my own voice amongst the songbirds’ chorus.
> 
> When my tapestry was completed, I sent it to my sister. It had taken me years to complete, and I hoped she would receive it and understand it. I had woven the story of my defilement and mutilation, and I had to trust she would see the truth of it. I loved her more than anyone and hoped she still held some love for me.
> 
> And Procne understood my message, and she railed against her husband. She poisoned him with the blood of their own son, and upon this discovery, she fled for Tereus chased after her with intent to murder.
> 
> ~~Zeus was a vengeful god who saw his descendant, Tereus, tricked, and so he struck down on me and turned me into a serpent~~
> 
> Hera, queen of the gods, saw my suffering, for she had suffered in the same way at the hands of a brutal and unwanted defiler. She felt my longing to fly away, and so she blessed me by turning me into a nightingale, so that I might flit through the bars of my the jail to freedom. 
> 
> And Tereus, who knew his own deeds were not caused by my beauty nor my song but by his own greed and covetousness, knew he could not go against the judgment of a goddess. So for all of his days, I hounded him, silent and songless but ever watching, to remind him that I possessed the goddess’ favor and that Her word rang true within me.


	12. Part II: iv

Aziraphale drops the manuscript. His hands shake. _Oh, God_. Crowley was Philomael--no-- _Philomela_ , the princess of Athens, and the angels were Tereus.

The papers scatter across the floor, Crowley’s shaky slow handwriting spilling everywhere. A memory of Crowley comes to mind, his hands quivering as he held his fork, how he dropped his cup when Aziraphale said he wished he could hear Her voice. It had been Crowley’s voice all along that he longed for. It must have taken him centuries, millennia, to write his story. 

Aziraphale departs from his shop with haste, abandoning his satchel. Crowley, he thinks, a mantra in his mind. He must find Crowley. His mind whirls, thoughts spiralling out. If the story is true then he was not to blame for Falling, for being cast out. The angels’ desire and covetousness were all their own, and they had punished him out of envy. 

He wishes it to be true, needs it to be true. 

He has time to fix this. Gabriel was disgusted by Crowley at the airbase and hadn’t pushed when Crowley stood between him and Adam. When Crowley supported the Antichrist’s decision to stop the war, Gabriel had obeyed because… 

Aziraphale stops in the middle of a crosswalk and a pedestrian behind him slams into him. He registers the angry person’s curse as a distorted and muffled shout, caught up in his own thoughts.

Crowley stood beside Adam and supported the decision to terminate the war between angels and demons despite going against the Great Plan, and Gabriel relented. He had to relent. Why? Why did Gabriel leave?

Aziraphale opens his mouth in a gasp. Of course. Crowley--Philomael--was a Seraphim made of Her essence, Her voice. Going against him would be going against the Word of God. There needn’t be a war at all because he didn’t want it. 

Oh. _Oh_. 

He runs to Mayfair and pounds the door to Crowley’s flat. When no one answers, he pushes his way through with a force of divine power. “Crowley?” he shouts, darting between the rooms. He’d been here; Aziraphale can sense that much. 

Think. Where would he go? _Think think think_.

Aziraphale closes his eyes, pictures Crowley in the back of the agora looking over the Aegean Sea. He thinks of his breath against his cheek, short little puffs, as they sat together in the Library pouring over tomes. All this time, he’d been trying to tell Aziraphale his story, revealing very little else about himself. He always turned up wherever the story of Philomela went, and with them followed Gabriel. Gabriel destroyed Sophocles’ play. Gabriel burnt down the Library of Alexandria. He was there chasing Crowley the entire time, trying to stop Aziraphale from realizing the truth. 

A cold, autumn breeze whips past him as he steps back out onto the street. He shivers and bundles his coat closer. A memory strikes him then of Crowley peering into the stained glass windows of the church back in Germany. When was it? The 1500s? Aziraphale had traipsed through the snow to find him, nose pressed to the glass, eyes shut, as the choirs rehearsed.

And Crowley had been there in Venice of his own volition, hiding in the shadows of the Basilica, risking burns and blisters just to hear the castrati sing. Aziraphale remembers the way the light from the dome shone down on him for just one moment, and how the voices of the choir swelled. 

He had the most beautiful voice, Gabriel had said. 

For a moment, Aziraphale’s body sags, heart cleaving. He swallows hard and blinks back his damp eyes. 

Where would he go? 

Following a hunch, he stalks through St. James Park to Westminster Abbey. He lets the wind carry him, pushing him to be a little faster, a little lighter on his feet. He lets gravity guide him, that old familiar pull towards a black hole, that dark shadow. 

He sees Crowley before Crowley sees him, tucked underneath one of the arching stained glass windows of Westminster Abbey. The sun sets on the afternoon, and the school choir rehearses. Their soft ringing voices can be heard just over the sound of traffic speeding by. Crowley leans his head back against the stone wall, his knees pressed to his chest with his eyes closed. He would look peaceful if not for the strained press of his lips and creased brow.

Aziraphale approaches and settles beside him, uncertain where to begin. His own sorrow overwhelms him and for a moment he has no voice. They sit in silence listening to the children sing, voices high and muffled through the window pane.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he says after a moment.

Crowley exhales a sharp breath but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge him. It’s hard to tell where his eyes look behind the dark glasses.

He wants to reach for him. The distance between them feels infinite, the autumn wind stealing away any warmth. “I should have listened better. You’ve been trying to tell me the truth for so long, and I was oblivious. Why you even bothered with me, I don’t know.” He clears his throat and stares at his own hands folded in his lap for a long moment, searching for the right thing to say. He wishes Crowley would acknowledge him, do something, but that’s the point isn’t? Crowley had been reaching for so long, and he’d ignored it. 

“Do you know, I think about the Dowlings a lot. We should go back there once all is said and done.” 

Crowley turns to look at him then, mouth parted in a question. 

Aziraphale looks back and holds his gaze. He doesn’t know how he does it, how he conveys every emotion on his face without words. Aziraphale wants him to see what he feels. Repentance. Hope. “You were so kind to him. I forget that children are often more perceptive than most. He saw the goodness in you. He saw things that took me millennia to figure out.” Crowley huffs a bit then and looks down. “You used to do this thing where you’d swing him over your shoulder. Goodness, he was maybe four then? Still quite small. I could hear his shouts, so delighted, all the way up from my window in the manor. Do you remember?”

Crowley nods, still looking down. The movement is slight and near unnoticeable. Of course, he would remember. Half a decade is hardly anything out of the long life they’ve lived. Together.

“This place is mine, this earth. It’s for me to protect. I want to protect you too, though I don’t think you need it. Gabriel fears you, you know. What had Death said? ‘You still possess the power you thought you lost?’ You’re still Her voice; it’s that goodness in you. I shouldn’t have doubted it.” 

He takes Crowley’s hand, and Crowley lets him. He traces his fingers over the old scars. “Let me protect you, please? Will you forgive me for doubting you?”

Crowley squeezes his hand and nods, the softest sound escaping from him. The impression of it makes Aziraphale ache, body leaning towards him. _I know you now_ , he thinks. God, how he’s wanted him for so long. He leans in, bringing their faces together for a kiss, breath hitching in anticipation.

And then Crowley lets out a startled sound and turns so Aziraphale’s lips brush his cheek. He stills, tense, eyes shut tight behind his glasses, releasing a harsh, jagged breath. 

Aziraphale leans back. “I--I’m sorry, I thought--” He jerks away.

Then Crowley reaches for him, grabbing him by his coat, and pulls him in close. He presses his cheek to his ear and cups one hand around the back of his head, fingers curling in the soft hair he finds there. _Stay_. His breath comes out in little gasps, needy, as if afraid Aziraphale will push him away again. 

Wrapping his arms around his back, Aziraphale holds him in return. Of course. “I’m sorry,” he says, breath rushing from him. “I didn’t mean to press. I didn’t think.” He holds him tighter. 

Crowley leans back to look at him and pulls off his glasses. The yellow of his eyes shines against the setting sun, the evening chilling around them. There’s a flutter above them, a pair of nightingales landing on a branch overhead. 

“I’m bad at this, reading you. I don’t know what you want.” But that’s not true, is it, he thinks. The nightingale begins to trill, its little staccato chirrups drowning out the faint sound of the choir rehearsing. Aziraphale remembers singing back at them in the Garden of Eden as they fluttered about overhead, bits of the liturgy he’d heard the Seraphim sing. Wherever they went, Crowley had followed. 

All this time, all these things he'd been seeking, the humans' stories and Crowley's heart, were one and the same. 

It’s been so long since he’s sang the old hymns. He closes his eyes, reaching deep into his memory. When he sings the first note, it comes out creaking and off-key, but Crowley relaxes. They lean into each other, pressed up against the abbey, his voice muffled against the wind. It’s quiet and private, just for them. _I named you. You saved me. I’ll sing for you every day_. 


	13. CODA

Crowley acquired his Bentley sometime in the 1920s during their years of silence as they both circled London and each other. Aziraphale hadn’t been present when he first got it, and he’ll never know the whole story of it either. He’s learned to accept that he will never know all of Crowley’s truths, his stories, his traumas, but he knows the most important ones from his past, and he can be there with him for the rest. It’s enough.

He puts the stereo on, a Night at the Opera. Aziraphale takes the case and inspects the cover as the first rift of piano and sirens fill the cabin. He thumbs at the angel wings on the cover art and opens up the little accordion of lyrics. Beside him, Crowley’s fingers drum against the steering wheel as they pull out onto the motorway, tremoring between each beat. 

Aziraphale loves those hands, cradles them sometimes in his own palms, wraps his fingers around them to steady the constant shaking. They’re capable and clever and damaged.

He’d suggested a picnic that morning, and Crowley had whirled around the bookshop in a fervour until he found a map and a pencil, circling a little spot of country south of London. “Sure, my dear,” Aziraphale had said and went to collect a selection of charcuterie meats and cheese to pack. Crowley seemed at ease with his glasses off and hands stuffed into his pockets, leant against the desk with his ankles crossed as he waited. 

Aziraphale checked the calendar for the date one last time on a hunch. He glanced at Crowley for a second before letting out a heavy breath with a nod. “Shall we?”

Crowley drives at a menacing speed once they get past the traffic. He rolls the windows down and cranks the stereo up. They get through several tracks before they reach their destination, and though Aziraphale knows nothing about Queen, he likes their sheer intensity and emotion that pours out with every chord. 

He has an image in his mind of Crowley sprawled out on his overstuffed tartan chair, glasses dangling from the tips of his fingers, eyes shut with the record player on. Sometimes it’s Velvet Underground. Sometimes it’s Ave Maria. 

He’s at peace with the sound up. He takes to leaving little mixed CDs and playlists for Aziraphale. _Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon. You’re My Best Friend_. He has his own little language he finds in chords and harmonies.

 _I know_ , Aziraphale wants to say. _I see you. I hear you._

Crowley rolls the window down and dangles his free hand out the window as he seeks a hint of warmth and sunshine. The tip of his forked tongue peeks out every so often. He catalogues the changes in the air as they drive further and further away from the city. When he finally finds his destination, he lets out a pleased sound, raspy and throaty in a way that makes Aziraphale’s hands itch.

He parks the car off the side of the road. Aziraphale gathers the basket and their blanket, and they traipse towards a lone survivor tree in the field. 

“This is wonderful,” Aziraphale says, cracking open the basket. It’s bottomless as he begins to pull out champagne flutes and strawberries and a wheel of brie. Crowley looks at him, fond. “I didn’t mean to pack so much, but, well…” _Well, you know what today is_ , he wants to say, or, _I meant to pack exactly this much_. His hands flutter with an ambiguous gesture.

Crowley smiles. It’s warm and liquid, the points of his canines peeking from behind his lips. He knows. He understands. Aziraphale has learned he can talk and talk, but Crowley sees right through him, reads him down to his very core without hearing a word he said.

“Well,” he continues. “Happy anniversary, of a sorts.”

They clink their flutes together. 

They sit in silence. Crowley rips a chunk of baguette off and digs it right into the brie, ignoring the tut of disapproval this earns him. Aziraphale takes a moment to watch him, his relaxed expression and red hair shorn short moving from the breeze. He’s gained weight, he thinks. The creases around his eyes have faded. One year after the almost-apocalypse, he’s freer and happier, and Aziraphale is better for it too. 

He lets his eyes wander, content to look at the corded muscle of Crowley’s forearms where he’s pushed up his sleeves, the long lines of his legs stretched in front of him, a dark contrast to the cool blue and cream of the tartan blanket. Then Crowley catches his eye and gives him a sly smile. Aziraphale blushes but doesn’t stop staring. It earns him a grin, earnest and tentative. He’s allowed to look. He is the only one allowed to look.

Crowley reaches up and swipes an unsteady thumb at the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth, pulling away to reveal an errant piece of brie. He bites it off his thumb and ponders over the taste. Then he leans forward and presses his mouth where the brie had been, lightly against the chapped corner of Aziraphale’s mouth.

Aziraphale stills and holds his breath. They sit connected by that single press of skin for a long moment. It’s not often Crowley allows physical affection and even rarer that he initiates it. Aziraphale’s whole body grows heavy under the weight of the kiss.

Crowley still fears physical touch sometimes, after rough nights of sleep or long quiet days. Every so often he reaches for Aziraphale, however, and the angel is content to wait, to give him piece by piece what he needs when he needs it. 

He pulls away after a while and settles his back against Aziraphale’s chest. Aziraphale rests his hands on his sides, careful not to contain him, and sings bits and pieces of the music they listened to on drive down. Crowley lets out a sharp bark of laughter when he gets the lyrics wrong which earns him a playful swat. 

“Oh, oh dear,” Aziraphale says after a moment, rummaging through the picnic basket. “I forgot dessert.” 

Just then, something hard about the size of a baseball hits Aziraphale on the top of the head with a heavy thunk. “Goodness!” he shouts. He rubs at his crown and frowns when he feels a bump developing. 

Crowley laughs and throws his head back, his hair tickling Aziraphale’s chin. He holds up the fallen object and hands it to the angel.

Aziraphale takes it and examines it, eyes furrowed. Then he looks up. Above them are hundreds of dangling apples, ripening on the branches. He’s hit with the sweet smell of fruit that clings in his nose and at the back of his throat, cloying and warm. “I swear this wasn’t an apple tree when we first sat down.” He looks at Crowley who’s turned to face him, guileless. “This was your doing, wasn’t it? 

It’s a rhetorical question, of course. It’s always rhetorical. 

Crowley is a warm press to his front, lazy and relaxed with his legs stretched before them. He takes the apple and blows a hot breath on it, polishing it with his sleeve. Then he presents it with a simple movement, offering it to Aziraphale with an open face, glasses off and eyes soft and expectant. 

Once upon a time in a garden, Crowley had offered him an apple out of desperation, though Aziraphale didn’t know yet what it meant or how to listen. He knows now. He’s listening. 

He cradles Crowley’s hand with both of his own, one wrapped around his wrist and the other tangling their fingers together. He looks him in the eye and brings his mouth down as he bites into the fruit, the crunch loud and crisp in the space between them. 

Crowley smiles, bright and wild. He leans in and takes his own bite, his lips grazing over Aziraphale’s thumb.

 _Hello, you_ , Aziraphale thinks. His heart pounds, his chest bursting with pressure. _You know me through and through. Thank you._

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes and References (including a playlist!) will be featured in the next 'chapter.' My notes were too long to fit at the end of the story.


	14. Notes and References

Notes:

  1. Again, the wonderful and amazing artwork was completed by [peaceloveartsnart](https://peaceloveartsnart.tumblr.com/) and [Bees Are Awesome](https://bees0are0awesome.tumblr.com/post/190302102870/art-masterpost-for-name-the-sky-by-nieded). These links will take you their tumblrs so please check them out and give them some love!
  2. Special thanks to [Savvycalifragilistic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savvycalifragilistic/pseuds/Savvycalifragilistic) and [raiining](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiining/pseuds/raiining) for the beta and story coaching, and of course to the [Good Omens Big Bang](https://goodomensbigbang.tumblr.com/)!
  3. Title comes from a quote from Maya Angelou’s [_Caged Bird_](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48989/caged-bird).
  4. This story adheres to the [Neil Gaiman philosophy](https://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/185614944161/this-perhaps-may-be-a-bit-of-a-stupid-question) that there are two types of archangels, those with a lowercase ‘a’ which make up the second-lowest tier, and those with a capital ‘A’ which make up the highest tier, also known as the Seraphim. Therefore, Gabriel is a Seraphim. 
  5. Aziraphale is a [Principality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_angelology#Principalities_or_Rulers), like in the show. I’ve made very liberal interpretations of what that means. The wikipedia definition is: “angels that guide and protect nations, or groups of peoples, and institutions such as the Church.” Since he was the first principality, and possibly the only one to walk the Earth, he rules over all things and everyone falls under his legion. 
  6. The angelology/mythology that the Seraphim are created directly from God’s being but that the lower hierarchies of angels are made from other bits and pieces is just my own creation and not related to any sort of actual mythos. I like the idea that Aziraphale is made of the same things as stars and planets because his purpose is to protect them. Perhaps the other principalities are ruling over alien species.
  7. The introduction during the German Reformation refers to Martin Luther’s [95 Theses](https://www.luther.de/en/95thesen.html) in which he challenges the Catholic church. Martin Luther did not intend to cause a revolt, but this is what later leads to Lutheranism and the idea that Christians should have a direct relationship with God instead of going solely through priests and bishops, resulting in the first bibles being translated into common tongues instead of Latin.
  8. The original play [_Tereus_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tereus_\(play\)), based on the story of Procne and Philomela, was written by the Greek tragedian Sophocles. Only fragments remain. I chose to set the scene in Athens on 438 BC because Sophocles won the competition that year, but nobody knows what play he wrote and produced. 
  9. The story also briefly references retellings of Procne and Philomela with Chaucer’s [_The Legend of Good Women_](http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Legend_of_Good_Women) (which was never completed) and Shakespeare’s [_Titus Adronicus_](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/titus/full.html) ([summary](http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Titus_Andronicus)) in which the heroine, Lavinia, is raped and mutilated by having her tongue and hands removed so she cannot name her attacker.
  10. Despite not yet being written or performed, the song I imagine Crowley hearing in San Marco Basilica is the choral version of Samuel Barber’s ["Adagio for Strings"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0ybf1r7faI&list=PLWC7WBSwZGeX7KiQfkIekijG6YhPrCDb1&index=4). I reference castrati singers which no longer exist anymore due to the barbaric practice of… well… castration. Castrati were male singers who were castrated so their voice did not lower during puberty before women were allowed to sing in choirs and they are the equivalent of sopranos, altos, or countertenors. They were perceived to have the purest tone. Alessandro Moreschi was the last living castrato and the only one to ever be recorded. You can hear him singing “Ave Maria” [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjvfqnD0ws) when he was in his 50s, and therefore past his prime. Unfortunately, there are no recordings of a castrato singing in their peak, but this maintains the haunting beauty and range. 
  11. Leonardo da Vinci’s painting in this story did not actually exist, though many of his works are lost to time. Maybe he did paint Procne and Philomela. I don’t know. The idea of the painting is actually based on [Susanna and the Elders](https://www.wikiart.org/en/artemisia-gentileschi/susanna-and-the-elders-1610) by Artemisia Gentileschi. The original has been x-rayed to reveal a much more [graphic depiction](https://kathleengilje.com/artwork/321721_Susanna_and_the_Elders_Restored_X_Ray.html) of her assault than the idyllic final product. Da Vinci has also been known to have painted over previous drafts such as the [Mona Lisa](https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35031997) and recently discovered [Virgin of the Rocks](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/leonardo-da-vinci-virgin-rocks-immersive-experience-1625230), so I thought it would be totally in line that da Vinci would change the painting mid-way through completion.
  12. The poem Aziraphale reads to Crowley while he sleeps is [_Ode to a Nightingale_](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44479/ode-to-a-nightingale). [Here ](https://repository.wellesley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1787&context=thesiscollection)is an interesting thesis written by Windsor Rose Whitlock, arguing why Keats’ poem should be read through the lens of Philomela despite not explicitly being stated in the poem. 
  13. The play Aziraphale and Crowley go to see at the Old Vic doesn’t actually exist, but it’s based on Ovid’s [_Metamorphoses_](http://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph6.htm).
  14. Scenes during the apocalypse which mirror the show were adapted from Neil Gaiman’s [_The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book_](https://www.amazon.com/Quite-Fairly-Accurate-Omens-Script/dp/0062896903/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=good+omens+script+book&qid=1566063615&s=gateway&sr=8-1) _._
  15. Nightingales are mentioned gratuitously in this story. I’m not sorry! Only the males sing. The females are silent. 



  
  


[ The Philomela Playlist ](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWC7WBSwZGeX7KiQfkIekijG6YhPrCDb1): 

  1. “Trees” by Twenty-One Pilots, _why won’t you speak / where I happen to be / silent / in the trees / standing cowardly_
  2. “Laura (Oh, Girl)” by Phox, _oh girl, what are you doing there? / you're cutting off all your hair? / oh girl, what did they do to you? / what did they take from you / that you can never get back?_
  3. “Sad Animals” by Hey Rosetta!, _I know it’s beat and broken / I know it’s out of luck / I can’t change the memory / but I can fill it up with love / I can light it up_
  4. “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber
  5. “555” by Jimmy Eat World, _I gotta believe that you're there / When I sing, when I sing, when I sing / Cause if you're not real then I'm losing my head, my head, my head_
  6. “Out of the Woods” by Taylor Swift, acoustic, _the night we couldn't quite forget / when we decided / to move the furniture so we could dance / baby, like we stood a chance / two paper airplanes flying_
  7. “My Blood” by Twenty-One Pilots, _if there comes a day / people posted up at the end of your driveway / they're callin' for your head and they're callin' for your name / I'll bomb down on 'em, I'm comin' through / did they know I was grown with you? / if they're here to smoke, know I'll go with you_
  8. “Bandages” by Hey Rosetta!, _take these bandages off / let me stand, let me walk / leave these towels and gauze / let me up, let me out / into the sun_
  9. “Passenger Seat” by Death Cab for Cutie, _I strain my eyes and try to tell the difference between / shooting stars and satellites / from the passenger seat as you are driving me home / do they collide? I ask / and you smile_



Thank you so much for reading! You can follow me @[nieded](https://nieded.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. 


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